I am grateful for the opportunity to raise this important matter. I will shortly be 14 years a Member of this House and prior to that I spent 14 years working with the co-operative movement, in all facets of its industry, throughout Connacht and in County Clare. I wish to express my support this evening for my local co-operative, the Midwest Farmers Co-Operative, in its efforts to protect the milk quota of its small suppliers throughout the west and the midlands. I am delighted the Minister for Agriculture, Food and Forestry is in the House because last year he made a number of major pronouncements about ring fencing quotas in the west and in severely handicapped areas. I come from a county that has been classified as severely handicapped. The Midwest Farmers Co-Operative is one of a number of small co-operatives in the west. It has made a unique contribution to the development of our county and the entire western region over the years.
Teagasc is a State organisation whose main goals are to raise the competitiveness of agriculture and the food industry, ensure the continuing viability of the maximum number of farmers on the land and stimulate development and employment in rural communities. We have strongly supported Teagasc in the west as farmers, as a community and as a co-operative movement. In the 1970s, Athenry co-operative mart, where I worked, co-operated with Teagasc in making available to it a herd of friesian cows interest free over a period at their research centre in Belclare, near Tuam. Teagasc subsequently decided to close down the Belclare research centre and transfer its activities to Athenry and elsewhere. Prior to that it had closed down its operations in Creagh and Blindwell and were it not for Fianna Fáil in Government it would have extricated itself from most of its activities in the west.
The milk quota, originally consisting of 68,000 gallons, was created by western initiative on a farm managed and operated as a research centre by Teagasc. Teagasc transferred its activities to Athenry Agricultural College — owned partly by the Department of Agriculture, Food and Forestry and Teagasc — which owns 640 acres of the best land in the west. Prior to the amalgamation the college had a quota of 53,000 gallons and was then instructed by Teagasc to acquire extra cows to supplement the existing stock.
During the past two years Teagasc has been considering what it should do with its operations in the west. Negotiations have taken place in the past year between management and representatives of the Midwest Farmers Co-op and the managing director and some of the operational directors of Teagasc. Agreement, satisfactory to both parties, was reached in May 1995 but Teagasc did not communicate with the Midwest Farmers Co-op until last week when its operations director indicated to the chief executive of the co-op that it now proposes to transfer 56,000 of the 68,000 gallon quota to their farm in Kilmaley, County Clare. If this happens the suppliers to the Midwest Farmers Co-op will face an extra superlevy of 6 per cent as of 6 March, such is the volume of the quota being transferred.
Will the Minister fulfil his commitment to ring fencing quotas in the west and his Government's commitment to the development of the west and ensure that Teagsc fulfils its mandate to maintain as many families as possible on farms in this severely handicapped region? Will the Minister intervene and direct, not later than tomorrow, the chief executive of Teagasc, its board and its operations director to rescind the decision to transfer Galway milk to County Clare and to ensure the viability of the Midwest Farmers Co-op and its small suppliers are not threatened in the future? If Teagasc goes ahead, it will be a crisis for the co-op and a vote of no confidence in agriculture in the west. If the Government allows this to happen, it will be a kick in the teeth for the people in the west.
This is an opportunity for the Minister to exert his position as the political head of agriculture and we are depending on him to do so. I am confident he will not be found wanting.
