Skip to main content
Normal View

Dáil Éireann debate -
Wednesday, 30 Jun 1982

Vol. 337 No. 2

Sugar Manufacture (Amendment) Bill, 1982: Second Stage (Resumed).

Question again proposed: "That the Bill be now read a Second Time."

Last evening I made the point that the company which is now 50 years old was established for the purpose of supplying sugar. There was also the social aspect taken into consideration in regard to the location of some of the factories. In spite of all the problems encountered by the company it has successfully achieved what it set out to do. It has succeeded in supplying the home market and capturing a lucrative export market in spite of the handicaps of the Anglo-Irish Agreement. We are now outside the scope of that agreement and that has disadvantages in that the company must now compete in an open market in Europe. We are now wide open to imports from other EEC countries but because of the company's ability to produce competitively it has been able to resist that opposition. At present we are growing in the region of 88,000 acres of sugar beet. The target is 90,000 acres. This should be our aim in the interests of efficiency. We need to take up our full quota for the group to be efficient. It is a difficult operation but the company are devoting a lot of time to it at present.

Since the company was founded they got £5.5 million from the State. The company are 50 years old and that was a pittance especially when one considers there are about 4,000 people directly employed by them. There are up to 7,000 people growing beet. Taking the number of people involved in haulage and so on, the figure would be almost twice that number. If the company made a mistake it was in endeavouring to do the impossible over the years through borrowings and so on to keep going on the kind of financing they received. I never knew a time when the company were not short of money. I remember when financial commitments were such that they hampered the operation.

When the company set up Erin Foods they were expected to build a completely new industry with its own infrastructure, skills and factories out of the profits made on sugar. That has proved to be an impossible task. Substantial sums are needed to pay for work which has taken place. The factories have been modernised and there has been massive new replacements of machinery and new sugar silos have been acquired. The money has been spent on those and the company are now ready for another 50 years. Silos or new equipment will not be needed next year.

As was pointed out yesterday, when we look at the size of French and Danish factories and the advantages they have, we are at a disadvantage in trying to compete with them. There are large quantities of beet processed daily through those plants. They also have an advantage from a grower's point of view. Larger amounts of beet are grown there per farmer than there are here. We have a large number of small growers. I like it this way but, from the company's point of view, it is a more costly operation to service.

Over the years when money was scarce in farming, the company helped to finance the crop. They gave good credit terms to the farming community in regard to fertilisers, seed and so on. This must be appreciated. There was many a small farmer who would not be considered by the banks or lending institutions because of the size of his operation. He was a welcome customer at the doors of the company.

The Minister mentioned that Erin Foods were a drag on the funding of the company. While they have been a cost I should not like the impression to go out that they should not have been established. If Erin Foods had been properly funded initially, been given their own terms of reference and were not tied into the sugar group, this would have gone ahead more rapidly. They were held back at a crucial time when funds were badly needed. Instead of forging ahead on to the market place we started to cut back and close down. That was not a good idea especially in the context of what I said about food imports.

We spend millions of pounds on imported foods. The Erin brand is the only thing we can point to and say to the consumer, "This is Irish food. Please buy it not because it is Irish but because the price is right and it is of the best quality". Supermarkets do not give pride of place to Erin Food products. I went into supermarkets in the towns where the factories are located and in other towns and failed to find these products. Where they are to be found they are not in a prominent position. In some cases we had to bring indirect pressure to bear on supermarkets to convince them they are not playing the game.

I should like to think of Erin Foods as a company which brought new technology into agriculture. Successful growers of fresh vegetables were given that technology free, gratis and for nothing from Irish Sugar Company personnel. It costs a lot of money to train a person in AnCO. The company have provided technology for young people for nothing. Growing for Erin Foods is a gilt edge operation. One gets a contract and is given a price. One knows in advance what one's margins will be. Regrettably, the margins have not been as lucrative as they might have been because of the sales position. That has nothing to do with the products but with inflation and high interest rates. Our EEC counterparts are more than happy with the 10 per cent they get from the EEC whereas it is useless to our farmers. In my constituency, in parts of Carlow and Wexford and, indeed, in the west there are highly competent farmers growing vegetables.

Debate adjourned.
Top
Share