The necessity to amend the legislation here again arises out of the emergency. The committee that I have already referred to was set up under the original Dairy Produce (Price Stabilisation) Act, 1935, and, as I already explained, they were dealing in an advisory way with the export of butter. When the emergency arose they were put in control of the export of butter. In the first place, under that Act they had authority to deal only with butter, but recently the Minister for Food in Great Britain asked to have cheese also exported through some central organisation, and this committee is dealing with cheese. The first point we want to get right is that they should have power to deal with all dairy produce as well as butter. The second point is this, that I had power to pay the expenses of that committee under the Dairy Produce (Price Stabilisation) Act, but it was only working expenses, that is, payment of staff and so on, which amounted to about £150 a month, or something small.
Now that they have to purchase the butter and hold it some time before exporting, they will need a very much larger amount of money and I am asking in this Bill for power to authorise that committee to overdraw in the bank, with the concurrence of the Minister for Finance, to the extent of £500,000. That money, of course, will be repaid when the butter is exported. It is only by way of loan.
Under Section 4 of the 1938 Act, which is also an amending Act, there was general power to impose a levy on stocks of butter in the hands of registered proprietors and butter traders on an appointed day. We found it to be administratively impossible to collect this levy in all cases. There are, as every Senator will realise, some thousands of retailers in this country, and some of those people might only hold a few pounds of butter. We are, therefore, proposing to exempt anybody holding less than three cwt. of butter whenever a levy is struck. We are also asking for returns from the retailers in this case. Rather through an oversight, a creamery that had produced butter and held butter on hands at a time a levy is struck under the present legislation is not liable for the levy. That is very inequitable and is also being made right in this Bill. Butter held in cold storage is liable for levy within seven days. In some cases that butter may not be taken out of cold store for sale for some months, and it is rather hard on the owner to pay this levy. Under this Bill the levy will not be collectable until it is removed from cold store.
Under the Principal Act also, a levy can only be imposed on the first day of a month. That is being changed so that the levy can be put on at any date in the month that may be suitable. These changes with regard to the levy may appear rather formidable to some Senators, but I can assure the Seanad that they are very trivial. They will make for easier working in the collection of levies and so on, and are not going to hurt anybody. In fact, they are mostly in the way of relief to the owners of butter, giving them more time to pay, and so on. I may say also, for the information of the Seanad, that there is no danger whatever that any levy will be collected this year. All the payments will be the other way. A subsidy will be payable on exports and a subsidy will even be payable on production so as to help the producer of butter for the home market. There are no levies whatever collectable this year.
