It is not so much the increase, as Senator Ryan said, but the principle behind the increase we are opposed to—the principle behind the attitude of the Government towards farmers for the last 12 months. It is now clear that the attitude of the Government and the Minister for Agriculture is to allow taxation of every kind so that they can get at farmers. The Minister is today in this House, as he was this morning in the other House, gathering obviously much wanted loot to try and exist in office for another couple of months.
The president of the IFA said this morning that there is no doubt now but that this Government are demonstrating their desire to tax production in agriculture. It is not very often, as the Minister knows, that I stand at the shoulder of the IFA in any statements. The Minister's performance in the co-operative movement taxation and again this morning in his application of further taxation has made public the attitude of the Government. I can assure the Minister and the Government that the Prices Commission, about which there is so much talk, have become a joke among the people. Humourous stories are told about that organisation. The Minister knows well that all he has to do is scribble out the request on a piece of paper and send it to the Prices Commission: back it comes to the Minister, then in here and out to the meat factories. It appears to be as simple as that. The Prices Commission have become a laughing stock.
I wonder who will pay the price. It will not be the big rancher, the big producer or the fat stock keeper who will pay. It will be the store cattle man at the mart who will carry the brunt. The producers in Connacht who produce the stores will pay it.
I invite the Minister or any Member on the Government side to come to any of the marts in Tuam next Monday, or in Galway, where we produce a lot of store cattle. The first thing they will hear is: "It is shocking—45p a head off our cattle." They are not the people who will be sending those cattle into the market at all. The buyers will come and transfer that price back down to the special producer. The same applies to sheep. It is a lot easier to take more money out of sheep and do very little towards formulating a structure in which the sheep producers will know exactly where they are going at any particular time of the year.
In the last two or three years there was a huge anomaly in the sheep sales. There were different prices in different weeks—in some instances in particular days—in County Galway, where there was a huge sheep production. It is most unstable and I cannot see why the Minister would have to attack the lamb at all. I can see a reason for putting the levy on the cattle producers because they know where they are going and they have intervention price, but in the sheep trade there is nothing. The price of sheep can drop and can vary from week to week by as much as £5. The Minister knows that himself. Yet there is a set levy put on it. When one sees the amount of money that can accumulate from the sheep trade, particularly from the export of lamb, one can clearly see that it is an easy catch.
There is another question I should like to ask the Minister. As there are veterinary inspections on live sheep at points of transportation, is there to be a levy where sheep are exported on the hoof in containers or other ways across the sea? If so, is it included in the amount of money which the Minister mentioned in his speech?
While one must admit that something will have to be done, it is the attitude, the means and the timing of it that seems so irregular and, to me, so unnecessary. It is no wonder that Mr. Lane, the president of the IFA, said that it now appears to him, and indeed to the IFA, that this Government's main aim in life appears to be to tax agricultural production to the maximum.