Dáil Éireann debate -
Wednesday, 8 Jul 1992

Vol. 422 No. 4

Written Answers. - Milk Quotas.

Edward Nealon

Question:

217 Mr. Nealon asked the Minister for Agriculture and Food if he has made any arrangements to redress the situation that arose from the fact that over half of all the milk quotas surrendered in the more recent scheme came from the west, north-west and the north-east of the country.

Minister for Agriculture and Food (Mr. Walsh):

With a view to minimising the effects of the regional imbalance in the applications for the recent Community buy-up scheme, I have put a number of arrangements in place.

All small producers with quotas of less than 12,800 gallons were allocated additional quotas of 2.8 million gallons from a national reserve. These allocations represented an increase to allocations previously made to small producers from the special 1 per cent reserve in 1989. Depending on the co-operative-dairy, the initial allocations ranged from 139 gallons to 542 gallons. This additional award has brought all allocations up to 640 gallons. The co-operatives-dairies in the North-North-West have the largest number of small producers and therefore, while this area accounts for about 20 per cent of the national quota, their share of the additional 2.8 million gallons was in the region of 60 per cent.

Arrangements were also put in place for the allocation of an available reserve of 117,000 gallons to a small number of co-operatives in this region who had sur rendered most quota under the buy-up scheme.

I also successfully negotiated an extension of the Buy-up Scheme and decided to operate this in the Munster region only. Any quota purchased under this extension will, however, be available nationally.

With a view to the operation of any future Community buy-up schemes, I have asked the milk quota review group to consider the approach to be taken to the problem of disproportionate losses. The group recommended that future schemes be framed so as to avoid the flow of quota from one co-operative-dairy area to another. It is my intention to negotiate on this basis, in so far as possible, future proposals of this nature.