asked the Minister for Agriculture if there are any proposals to implement grading and quality control in respect of the domestic potato market.
12.
Ceisteanna—Questions. Oral Answers. - Potato Market.
11.
asked the Minister for Agriculture if he is aware that potatoes on the domestic market are being sold under false descriptions as to grade and variety; and if he will take steps to end this practice.
With the permission of the Ceann Comhairle, I propose to take Questions Nos. 11 and 12 together.
Regulations on grading and quality standards for maincrop ware potatoes sold on the home market were introduced on 16 January 1978. The sizing provisions in those regulations did not operate until 17 July and were altered by regulations announced on 10 October. There is as yet insufficient experience to enable reliable conclusions to be drawn as to the observance of the new requirements.
The provisions for sale of potatoes separately by variety are being enforced as effectively as possible and no significant infringement of them has been reported.
While I am aware that certain publications carried the information on those two occasions, or thereabouts, that efforts were being made in this direction those efforts do not seem to have had any effect in a practical sense. Things are just going on as they were. In respect of Question No. 12, has the Minister any information that would clearly indicate misleading information being given on the bags, which would appear to conform with the regulations the Minister has been talking about but which is totally false? People are—and this is well known to the trade—selling here in this city and elsewhere goods the description of which is totally in contradiction to the contents of the bag.
My Department have no information as to any particular or widespread abuse of the provisions from the point of view of false descriptions. If there are false descriptions I would be glad to have information that would lead to correcting the situation in regard to potatoes or anything else.
Would the Minister try to find some way of monitoring the situation a little more closely with a view to engendering a proper realisation of the obligations governing the marketing and distribution of potatoes? There are some who are doing a hell of a bad job for the potato growers, who are hard pressed in other markets at the moment in trying to make ends meet. If things are not put right we will yet find ourselves importing supplies.
I think there is a great deal to be desired, but we are making progress.
13.
asked the Minister for Agriculture if it is intended to set up a potato marketing board; and, if so, when.
Proposals for a common organisation of the potato market have been before the Council of Agricultural Ministers for some time and work on them is now well advanced. Until we know the final form of the Community organisation it would not be prudent to take a decision in regard to our national arrangements here.
Is the Minister aware of the promise contained in the Fianna Fáil manifesto to set up potato marketing and develop——
Yes.
When does the Minister intend to implement that decision, or does he still intend to do so?
In this connection also the German President's programme of work for the month of November involves a decision on the question of potato markets. There is no guarantee that a decision will be taken, but it is the open intention to seek one. Until that decision is taken it would certainly be unwise for us to attempt any national arrangements of our own because if we did it might be found in conflict with the arrangements being made in Brussels.
Would the Minister not have thought it prudent to have included that condition in the promise which was made in the election manifesto?
In considering the setting up of such a board, is it the Minister's intention that such a board would ultimately be the controlling and channelling agency through which all home usage as well as any export potential would be developed?
This is so. This is one of the difficulties in the setting up of a board——
I find difficulty in hearing the Minister.
I also find it difficult to hear the Deputy.
You were closer together at one time.
It is one of the difficulties besetting the setting up of a potato marketing board. It will be obliged to be without State interference. In the same way as Bord Bainne had to become co-operative, I would expect that any proposed national potato marketing board would have to be on similar lines. There are other problems that are difficult of solution and will have to be solved in one way or another such as possibly providing a stabilising fund to tide people over periods of very sharp drops or rises in order to ensure a price that is acceptable to consumers and producers at all times.
Considering the number of State or semi-State agencies that are in the potato business in the home and export markets at present, has the Minister made or will he make any headway in bringing all these interests together, because in the past this was the breaking point on which such arrangements failed? All of these people seem to want to have their own little dung hill on which they could crow to the detriment of Irish potato growers. I hope the Minister has more success than I had when I tried to bring them together before. I am not talking about the ordinary people but about State and semi-State people.
I am aware of the difficulties in that area.