Vol. 270 No. 5
asked the Minister for Agriculture and Fisheries if he has received a report on the position of pig production in County Donegal; if his information indicates a fall in production and a decline in the number of farmers now engaged in production; and, if so, if he will indicate the action taken or proposed to be taken to remedy the matter.
29.
asked the Minister for Agriculture and Fisheries if he is aware that many pig breeders are being forced out of business by the uncontrolled price rise in feeding stuffs; and if he will make a comprehensive statement about the future prospects for the industry.
30.
asked the Minister for Agriculture and Fisheries the measures he proposes to take to salvage the pig producing industry.
31.
asked the Minister for Agriculture and Fisheries if there is any record of the amount of pregnant sows being slaughtered at bacon factories at present owing to the high price of feeding; and if he is aware of the seriousness of this situation.
32.
asked the Minister for Agriculture and Fisheries if he is aware that traditional pig producers are selling off their sows in great numbers owing to costs of feeding stuffs; and the measures he is taking to ensure that the pig industry is safeguarded.
33.
asked the Minister for Agriculture and Fisheries if he will make a statement on the decrease in the number of pigs being received at bacon factories at present.
With your permission a Cheann Comhairle, I propose to take Questions Nos. 28 to 33 together.
A difficult situation for our pig producers has developed over recent weeks due, on the one hand, to the rise in feed prices and, on the other, to downward fluctuations in pigmeat prices on our main export market, Britain. The present high prices for feed are world-wide and pig producers in Northern Ireland and Britain have been similarly affected.
Fluctuations in pig prices are to be expected in the freer trade conditions obtaining in the EEC. Such fluctuations also occurred last year, but on the whole, that year was a profitable one for pig producers. In these circumstances it is important that pig producers should stay in the business and refrain from selling off more sows to factories as some appear to have been doing recently. It should be accepted that periods of reduced profitability must be balanced against those periods when profits are good. Recent sales of sows, however, which include sows imported from Northern Ireland, are partly due to the current good demand and prices for sows for special markets and for processing and do not necessarily indicate any significant movement out of pig production.
I am keeping the whole situation under review in consultation with the interests concerned. I may mention that the EEC Commission's price proposals for the coming year include an increase of 8 per cent in the basic price for pigmeat and I am pressing at the Council of Ministers to secure the best arrangements possible in that respect.
I am glad that the Minister recognises that the pig industry——
A question please, Deputy.
I am leading to it, if I may.
It need not necessarily be prefaced by a statement.
I am basing my supplementary question on the answer given by the Minister to a long number of questions.
I merely ask the Deputy to be brief.
I will be very brief with my supplementary. It is heartening to see that the Minister is aware of the crisis in the pig industry but is he serious when he says that the advice he is giving those involved in the industry is to stick it, to stay together on it? This advice, I am sure the Minister would agree——
This is a long supplementary.
Of course it is because this is a very important industry.
The Chair discountenances omnibus questions. A brief question please.
I would like to know from the Minister why he believes that people involved in the pig industry who are getting £3.50 less for pigs now than they did before Christmas will be able to stay in the industry and how the small pig producer can ride out this storm? How can he hope to stay in the business? Can the Minister say if any subsidy can be made available to tide him over?
The answer is no subsidy can be made available under EEC regulations.
The Minister answered only one of my supplementary questions and even on that one I do not agree with him.
Let us not have an argument, please.
If I cannot talk to the Minister here where can I talk to him?
By way of supplementary question. This is Question Time and I must remind the Deputy again and again of this.
I am asking a supplementary question. I am sorry if I seem to be going a long way around it. I will try to come straight to it. What prospects does the Minister hold out for the many small producers involved in the pig industry?
It depends on how small you get. There is no doubt about it if you are too small in the business and you are not otherwise occupied there will not be much profit in pigs in the future.
What is the dividing line between too small producers?
It is very difficult to decide what is the dividing line. The EEC people who discussed this have decided they would base their grants on a 20 sow unit, as the Deputy knows, or a 200 pig fattening unit.
Am I right in assuming that anybody who keeps less than a 20 pig fattening unit will now be out of business?
He will not get grant aid. That is all.
Deputy Callanan.
So, the small farmer is out?
I have called Deputy Callanan. Will Deputy Collins please allow questions to proceed?
He is not.
I asked a definite question which was not answered. I asked if the Minister has any figures to show the amount of pregnant sows that are at present being slaughtered at bacon factories. There is one particular factory where up to 80 or 90 are going in. Is the Minister also aware that I know a factory where they offered a sow free to their employees to bring home to farrow but because of the cost of feeding stuffs they would not take the sow to get the bonhams free?
This is a long statement.
A whole industry is at stake. I ask the Chair to give us a chance. We cannot discuss anything about what is happening in Europe except through questions in the Dáil.
Supplementaries must be brief. The Deputy has asked a series of questions and has made a long statement as well.
I am trying to get to the bottom of this. Could there be a subsidy given for feeding stuffs to try to save all the sows that are pregnant in the west, of which 75 per cent are being slaughtered?
The answer to the Deputy is no, there cannot be a subsidy made available.
Is the Minister not aware that the 8 per cent increase he is getting is not sufficient to give confidence to the farmers who are producing fattening pigs at present?
I am so aware and I am saying it in the only place that one can effectively say these things.
What is the Minister doing to try to get a higher price to save the pig industry and put confidence in it for the future?
I have done the only thing that was open to me to do. Mind you, I had a lot of consultations with farming organisations and everybody else on this and I asked them for their suggestions. The one thing we could do was to ask the EEC in the case where at present we are getting no import subsidy on grain not to ask us to pay compensatory monetary amounts on exports of pig meat because we are practically competing on level terms with third countries in the British market at the moment, Poland mainly. The Commissioner at the last meeting offered to look at this seriously and see if anything could be done. If we secure this it will mean approximately 50s. per pig. I hope this may happen.
I tabled a question asking what measures the Minister proposes to take to salvage the pig producing industry. He will have to consider this matter very carefully and very quickly unless this industry is to be completely wiped out. We might not then need to talk about grants.
I have offered to allow the Deputy a question but he is making a statement.
Grade A pigs are not acceptable in some factories.
I fully accept that the industry is in trouble and I have said so. It is in trouble in the North of Ireland, in England and in Denmark, so it is not something which is confined to Ireland. It is because of the world prices for grain.
Does the Ceann Comhairle not know that the pig industry is very important at the moment?
Deputy Fitzgerald should please keep quiet.
Would the Minister recommend to the ACC that they give a cheap loan to those people whom he asked to stay in the business and who are in financial trouble to tie them over this period?
A final supplementary from Deputy Collins.
It is very difficult to get any worthwhile concession in the EEC because all the time they are so fearful that they will be in surplus in a very short time. The pig cycle is such that they can increase numbers so rapidly and pig production can be done on a factory scale.
My question is on the Agricultural Credit Corporation.
Deputy Collins for a final supplementary. Deputies, please resume your seats.
Would the Minister agree that the feeding costs for the pig industry have rocketed particularly since the decontrolling of prices of feeding stuffs and that the action of the Minister and his Government at Christmas had a very serious effect on the pig industry?
Organised farming does not think so. They requested decontrol and they got it and our prices are lower than they are in the North of Ireland or in England.
Question No. 34.
When does the Minister expect to have a report from the EEC Commissioner?
34.
asked the Minister for Agriculture and Fisheries if he will guarantee an economic price for pig production so that pig producers will not be operating at a loss.
Under the terms of the EEC regulations relating to the common organisation of the market for pigmeat it is not open to me to fix guaranteed prices for pigs.
On a point of order, I should like to give notice that I intend to raise on the Adjournment the questions dealing with the pig industry.
The Deputy is quite in order and the Chair will communicate with him.
