I trust that my raising this matter here this evening will not be taken in any way personally by the Minister. While I recognise the Minister's achievements in office, I regret that under his administration the price of potatoes has been allowed to get out of hand. Today I tabled two questions in this regard. They were Questions Nos. 31 and 32 on the Order Paper and were as follows:
To ask the Minister for Agriculture and Fisheries if he will take steps to curb the export of table potatoes in order to bring about a uniform price for this prime article of food.
To ask the Minister for Agriculture and Fisheries if he will take steps to set up a system for buying table potatoes in order to bring about stability of prices.
In reply the Minister said:
The export of ware potatoes is subject to licensing control and no licences have, in fact, been issued since late July. In present circumstances any support buying would only aggravate the supply/demand situation. Also, it should be borne in mind that the future arrangements for potato marketing here will be influenced greatly by the decision of the Council of Ministers on the proposals for a common organisation of the potato market which have been put forward by the EEC Commission and are expected to come before the Council shortly.
While our membership of the EEC has resulted in many benefits for us, benefits of a kind which up to recently we did not think we would ever achieve, we are left in a position in which the consumer is in a dear market. Worse still, our consumers are forced to compete with the consumer in Britain where, for instance, potatoes are £60 per ton dearer than they are here.
The Minister's reply was not entirely to the point because taking a matter like this to the Council of Ministers is not the proper course. I say this because we are in an emergency situation in regard to a prime source of food. I am concerned particularly for those in the lower income brackets. These are the people who feel the pinch most. It is a great imposition on large families, on old age pensioners and so on to have to pay so dearly for this part of their staple diet. The Americans tried to tell us once that the potato was not deserving of the importance that we attach to it in the context of food value but I would be prepared to argue at any level that this vegetable is worth its place on any table either in this country or elsewhere.
My reason for raising the matter is to endeavour to find a better way whereby producers would be guaranteed a fair price and that we might eliminate the black market price situation. A price in excess of £8 per cwt must be regarded as a black market price. It is regrettable that we should be in this position having regard to our experience during the war years and afterwards when various items of food were scarce. However, we must realise that there is a high market in England for potatoes. Is it not possible to take steps to counteract this situation? I suggest that we use the sugar company as an instrument in this sphere. We should have given them the go-ahead to buy potatoes, to retain them and then release them to the market when prices were inclined to get out of hand. I accept the Minister's statement that this year there are an additional 18,000 acres of land under potatoes but despite this the black market prices continue to be charged. Had we organised ourselves to deal with the black marketeers and with the smugglers the situation would not have arisen. A huge quantity of potatoes must have been smuggled across the Border. I realise that practice is a difficult one to deal with and I believe the Minister when he says that many tons of potatoes were seized at the Border. Unfortunately, though, such apprehension would not appear to have had the effect of putting an end to this rotten campaign. It is too bad that after 50 years of freedom we have not the spunk to unite and say we will put an end to this smuggling so that our people might buy potatoes at a reasonable price.
We know that the shortage of potatoes last year resulted from not enough acreage being devoted to this crop but despite the lesson we should have learned from that we have the position again this year where not enough land has been cultivated for this purpose. This problem should have been tackled from two angles. First, the producer should have been given every encouragement to sow more potatoes. Some months ago on Farmer's Forum I heard a representative of the North Dublin Growers say that they were prepared to grow potatoes at £3 a cwt or £60 a ton or less—£50 I think. That is not too long ago.
We must recognise that from the grower's point of view costs have gone up all around. Everything he feeds the potatoes with has increased in price, even his land. Therefore, if he relates it to his capital costs, he is involved in much more expense in growing potatoes than he was in the past. We should also recognise that there is such a thing as a fair price. Less than half that price of £8 a cwt. which I mentioned should be a fair price today having regard to relative costs. The Minister is a better judge of this than I am. If I were in his position, even if I had to stay up all night, I would organise public opinion against the scourge of smuggling. This scourge has caused a shortage of potatoes which should not obtain at present.
We should discourage speculators. Regrettably we have people who are speculators from the cradle to the grave. They are very sneaky, smug individuals. They are prepared to come on the scene very quickly and to make their exit very quickly. We should also have regard to the role of the smuggler. The British turn a blind eye to smuggling because, having pursued a cheap food policy for so long, they believe they can look on this country as a back garden to provide them with cheap food still. We should try to disabuse them of that idea. Even though potatoes are making anything from £60 per ton more in Britain, I still contend that a fair price for potatoes here, and one which could be applied equitably all round, and one which would pay the growers, would be roughly half that amount.
Admittedly, in the past growers of potatoes were underpaid. We were not organised. Like the farmyard hen, the potato was hawked around in towns and villages and sold for a throw away price. Potatoes were fairly plentiful then. They were grown on a wider scale than they are today. In the coming year, if we are all alive, we should stress the necessity for growing more potatoes not only by growers and farmers but by cottiers and people who have gardens or a perch of ground. If every man grew his own patch of potatoes—which regrettably was not done this year—we would not have a potato shortage. People in the cities can do little about it. Regrettably the butt of this whole exercise is the man with a large family or the poor old person living in a flat.
I should like to appeal to the conscience of some of those in the chain of production and distribution. They are creating what is tantamount to a famine. When we get a circular from Concern, or Oxfam, or Caritas, or some voluntary charitable organisation, if we have a few shillings we try to subscribe and, if we have not, we write a letter of goodwill. I appeal to all concerned to realise that people in this city are finding it hard to exist and cannot afford to pay £1 per stone for potatoes or more.
People from Northern Ireland come here in lorries and they are willing to pay £125 per ton for potatoes. I should love to be able to get the number of those lorries and to have the people who are selling those potatoes prosecuted. I do not deny that. We will never get rich in that way. It is the worse sign for any economy to see a feast first and then a famine. It is like a sick man whose temperature shoots up one day and is down to rock bottom the next day. We should give a guaranteed price for potatoes. This would be well worthwhile. We should guarantee the price through some marketing company, some semi-State organisation like the Sugar Company, who would be empowered to pay the going price for potatoes and store them until there was a scarcity.
I recognise that the Minister's reply was objective when he said the acreage had gone up. I know that. This makes it all the more regrettable that we should find ourselves in this position. Last spring the Minister encouraged the spread of tillage. I hope he will continue to do so. No matter how good the price of cattle, or meat, or pigs, or pork, or whatever you are selling may be, we still must have a tillage campaign in view of the price of imports, and in view of the price of maize and other inferior products imported from abroad, and in view of our balance of payments. All these make it all the more necessary that we should try to utilise the last perch of ground we have for growing potatoes.
