asked the Minister for Agriculture and Fisheries the amount of money in MCA charges paid to Brussels by Irish meat and livestock exporters to date.
Ceisteanna—Questions. Oral Answers. - MCA Charges.
36.
The total amount lodged to EEC accounts in respect of exports of live cattle, beef and pigmeat up to the end-October 1975 was £8.4 million approximately. I should point out, however, that the charges on our exports to the UK, which is the largest sector of the trade, are more than offset by the MCA subsidy payments made on import into the UK. There is also a net payment on some exports to other destinations.
Would it not be fair to say that it is to a great degree the European Commission who finance the common agricultural policy through the mechanism of MCA subsidy payments——
Yes.
——and that when the benefit now operating is considered it is not accurate to look upon it as a total net payment—that there are contributions such as the very substantial ones paid by the Irish cattle trade in the form of MCAs to the maintenance of the CAP?
No. It is the other way around.
Are the funds derived from the MCA used towards the funding of the CAP?
Yes, but FEOGA lose out on the transaction as far as we are concerned.
Would the Department expedite payments to the many farmers in Border areas who have purchased breeding stock in Northern Ireland? They are awaiting MCA payments and at the present time many of them are getting demands for this money?
The Deputy is talking about something for which the UK are responsible, not us.
They are getting the demand for the UK one and they are waiting for that from the Department.
I wish the position were what the Deputy states. It is the other way around.
I can give the Minister a number of names of people who got six-day notices.
The net position is that we are owed much more than we owe other people.
37.
asked the Minister for Agriculture and Fisheries if he expects the MCA payments on Irish agricultural products to cease; and if he will make a statement on the matter.
Having regard to the international monetary situation, I am not hopeful that the MCA charges on Irish agricultural products will cease in the near future. It will be my aim, however, to continue to ensure that the level of the charges is kept as low as possible.
Did not the European Commission in their stocktaking of the common agricultural policy intimate that part of the dismantling of the CAP system would be the cattle they would take on?
The 1975 memorandum was proposing the phasing out of the MCA directive at the end of the transitional period. In their stocktaking document earlier this year the Commission somewhat modified this. It was intimated that they would not accept the applications in so far as they constituted factors disrupting the unity of the agricultural market. They modified the line they were originally on and as long as exchange rates continue to fluctuate we have no hope of phasing out MCAs. We can hope to try to get reductions in representative rates. I tried to get agreement that there would be some built-in adjustment so that when MCAs were above a certain figure this would automatically go, but I failed to get that agreement.
Would the Minister consider preparing a list of the distortions that arise such as the flooding of the UK market with German and Danish meat supplies——
I have used these distortions on almost all occasions.
The remaining questions will appear on tomorrow's Order Paper.