I move:—
That a Customs duty at the rate of two shillings and sixpence the hundredweight shall be charged, levied and paid on all oatmeal imported into Saorstát Eireann on or after the 22nd day of April, 1926.
This is the only Customs duty of an agricultural character which we found it possible to accept and to recommend to the Dáil. As I said, it deals with a commodity of which not a very large quantity is imported, but it is a commodity that will give a certain new market for agricultural produce, amounting as I said, to something like 20,000 tons of oats. It will keep a certain number of grist mills going, or help to keep them going, which are of value to the country, and in that way, and in increasing the output of other mills, it will give a certain amount of direct employment. We have not thought it necessary to elaborate in any way in the matter of defining oatmeal, as we think that no difficulties will arise. It will include all the ordinary types of oatmeal: Pinhead meal, pot oats, medium curb oats, rolled cats, flake meal, Quaker oats, redhead flaked meal, baby flake meal, groats.