I appreciate the Minister's presence in the House for this matter on the Adjournment. It confirms my confidence in him and in his attitude towards the farming community and it is consistent with the concern he has been demonstrating so much recently.
The matter I want to raise is the need for the Minister for Agriculture and Food to examine the serious difficulty facing Irish potato producers who are now at a great disadvantage as a subsidy is being paid to growers in the United Kingdom. I was alarmed to read an article in the Farm Weekly, which is circulated in Northern Ireland, which states:
The Department of Agriculture for Northern Ireland has announced that, following consultation with the Ulster Farmers' Union, it has been decided that the support price for the 1992 ware potato crop should remain at £46 per tonne and any support operation will be limited to a maximum of 60,000 tonnes. The target area for Northern Ireland planting in 1992 was fixed last August at 11,750 hectares.
Since that article appeared, there has been a clarification, and the subsidy may not be paid in the North of Ireland, but it is being paid to growers and producers in the UK.
The potato industry is of some value to the Irish economy and we very often hear people expressing concern about the decline in agriculture, in tillage and the tonnage of potatoes being imported either in processed form or as ware potatoes ready for the table. The housewife is horrified at having to buy imported potatoes. The perception seems to be that the Irish producers are not capable of grading their potatoes and presenting them on the market in a way that is attractive to the housewife. That is totally wrong. The producers in Ireland have been working at a very serious disadvantage for years. Most European countries have a potato policy and have support for potato storage. This in itself is a vital area in so far as most of the producers of potatoes in Ireland are small producers.
If you have a very large milk quota you would be a fool to be working at tillage and producing potatoes. In some areas — for example, my county — there has been a tradition of producing potatoes. That is probably why I am concerned and why I am still here after 8 o'clock on a Wednesday evening. There must be a concerted effort to tackle this issue. This has been said many times to different Ministers and different Governments. I believe the good intentions are always there but I am not sure why we cannot come to grips with the problem and save the potato industry.
We had one of the best export seed businesses in Europe and we lost it. I will not go over the reasons for that. The members of the Potato Marketing Board sat on their high stools in Merrion Square while we lost a valuable industry. The Minister is not responsible; he was not in charge and I am sure he deplores this development as much as I do.
In 1989, in view of the serious plight of the potato growers, I raised a matter on the Adjournment in which I called on the Minister to press for an EC potato policy to protect the industry. The same year, An Bord Glas came out with a programme for development of seed potatoes which said:
The Bord, in the light of its examination of the sector, has decided the following Programme. The Programme is expected to result in a doubling of certified seed potato sales to 40,000 tonnes over the next five years.
Sadly, that did not happen. It is no pleasure for me to stand here and say that. This is an admission that we have all failed and I do not know why. It continues:
This will also have beneficial impact on the ware sector as well as increasing seed exports to 25,000 tonnes. The development of the industry in a structured way is projected to create 50 new jobs in this sector over a five year period.
Sadly, this did not happen either.
I am calling on the new Minister for Agriculture and Food to bring fresh thinking to the issue. I am highlighting the fact that, before we read the announcement of a subsidy of £46 per tonne for ware potato producers in the UK, we had a problem because people who are delivering concrete slabs and products from the North and the South to the UK are looking for a load for the return journey. Potatoes are being brought in from Scotland, record ware potatoes were being dumped here at the end of the season at prices with which those who stored potatoes to the month of June found it impossible to compete, even though this was one of the best years in the past five years for the potato producer. The price collapsed at the end of the year because the Scottish farmers dumped their surplus potatoes on the Irish market. It would be very easy for them to continue to do that and I can see no good reason why they would not do it if they are going to be subsidised. The transport costs less than £10 per tonne. If you take a container load of potatoes across weighing 30 tonnes, £10 per tonne pays the boat and covers the cost. With today's modern equipment it only takes half an hour or an hour to load or unload a truck with a forklift. For trucks returning from the UK, Scotland or wherever it is good business to bring back a load of potatoes. If you add all those factors, they spell crisis to me.
I am interested in a small company that tendered to supply potatoes to the Army. At the end of May, the Army cancelled the contracts of every single supplier in the south of Ireland because of one bad supplier. Many people who had very satisfied customers and suppliers were left in the lurch. Many small merchants were storing potatoes to fulfil the contract with the Army up to the end of June and just like that, the Army cancelled the contracts. What did they do? They bought Cyprus potatoes at £400 per tonne. Cyprus is outside the EC. It is astonishing and we could hardly believe it.
There is no point in criticising people and saying who was guilty of neglect. I am glad to have the opportunity to ask the Minister for Agriculture and Food, Deputy Walsh, to please look after the potato sector and not to mind the people who think they have it under control. They have failed. The aims laid down in their statements made three years ago have not been achieved. We are losing an industry. We will all be embarassed, including the Minister, to see the day when every country in Europe will have its brand name on a bag of potatoes in every supermarket and shop in this country. At least I will have done my best. I will have tried to do something about it, to take it seriously and, I will have expressed my opinion.
I ask the Minister to study this matter more closely than any of his predecessors or An Bord Glas and to recognise that we have a difficulty at present. The fact that the UK producer will receive £46 per tonne for ware potatoes is very serious and we have to face it. I have confidence in the Minister and I have no doubt he will recognise that I would not be raising this matter if I did not have a problem.
