This is a Vote for funds to advance to farmers to erect new creameries in districts where no creameries at present exist. The amount mentioned is £23,500. That will be available and will be sufficient up to 31st March. Only a small proportion of the total liabilities will be incurred by that date. The supplementary amount which will be necessary to be found in the new Financial Year in order to complete the work to be done under this Vote will be £70,000 or £80,000, making a round total of about £100,000. The method adopted is to take a token vote of £10. Under sub-head Q in last year's Estimates a sum of £52,600 was voted for University College, Cork.
We expect that there will be £23,500 of that available, perhaps more. There will be an amount required in any case, and the amount required will be £23,500 by the end of the financial year. That need not in any way disconcert the people who are interested in the Dairy Faculty in University College, Cork; the money is there for them. They have not got ahead as quickly as we thought they would. Our business was to provide the money; the money is there and there is no hitch whatever on this side. They have some difficulty over the site. There are three possible sites for the new creamery, and they have not been able to come to a decision yet as to which they will fix on. When this estimate was introduced last year they had practically made up their minds on one site, but since then they have changed their minds. There is an alternative site and they have not yet been able to decide between these two on account of difficulties of their own with which we are not concerned. If they had, this money would have been used. As it is, and having regard to the date which we have reached and to the fact that we have only three months to go to the end of the financial year, there is no likelihood that they will have drawn the whole of this, but it is quite certain that this £23,500 will be available. With regard to the new creameries the position is that there has been a considerable demand for the last three months for new creameries and for credits for the establishment of new creameries. That demand has coincided with the considerable difficulty experienced by the suppliers in finding money through the ordinary joint stock banks. I do not want to go into these difficulties. They are there. Money is getting tighter, not only money for the purpose of developing the creamery industry but money for every other purpose, and that particular tendency has come at the same time as a demand for credits for new creameries. In that state of affairs we decided that we would step into the gap, especially in view of the fact that the Agricultural Credit Bill will be passed this Session and that the Agricultural Credit Corporation will be set up as soon as possible after the passing of the Bill. That corporation will be asked to take over these loans. These are loans, not subsidies. I need not argue the advantages of providing that money. It is another step in our backward career of endeavouring to put a premium on mixed farming instead of specialised farming. We are asking the farmer to go in more for tilling and dairying rather than for livestock and pigs. It is frankly a policy to encourage mixed farming as against grain-growing for sale as such.
There is another important consideration that we took into account when we came to this decision, and that was that as a result of the Dairy Produce Act, which is not yet fully in operation, the price of home-made butter has absolutely collapsed. There is no market for it now except the butter factories; farmers' rough lumps cannot be exported, and rightly so. We will not allow it. It very often contains more than 16 per cent. of water, and there are other good reasons for preventing its export. That has limited the market considerably, and the result has been that farmers' butter sold from 6d. to 11d. a lb., or from 2½d. to 4½d. a gallon for the milk, during the last year. That particular factor was more eloquent than any plea to convince the Department, the farmers or anyone in the Dáil, that there was no money in that, and that they should turn to the creameries. There are districts which gave up the idea of home butter-making with a great many pangs and that are still rather sorry for themselves, but the general opinion is that the people in these counties have changed their minds quickly as a result of these prices obtained during the last six months. They are ready, and the time is ripe for meeting their demands for creameries.
I do not want to indicate the number of creameries that may be erected from this fund. There are certain applications. These applications may be granted or amended. I do not want to indicate the counties either. There are various counties all over the South, and there are some applications from Northern counties. They will all be considered. Claims that have been put in for central creameries may be changed to auxiliaries. Other applications for creameries may be refused on the ground that there are auxiliaries close by, so that I am not in a position at the moment to say what proposals put up under this fund will be centralised creameries and what proportion will be auxiliaries. Each proposal will be examined on its merits, and the consent of the Department of Lands and Agriculture will have to be obtained. In other words, the loan will only be given if we are satisfied that the particular proposition is economically sound. To be satisfied about that we must not only be satisfied that the creamery will not be redundant but satisfied that an auxiliary would not suffice instead of a central creamery. There are too many centrals and too few auxiliaries. We will have to be satisfied also that there is an economic milk supply. We will give those loans on certain conditions specified, and I will indicate to the Dáil specifically what these conditions are. The society must, of course, be affiliated to the I.A.O.S. You can take it that a number of these conditions are conditions that will be embodied afterwards in the Bill. There must be in these cases a half-yearly audit by a competent auditor. Before the society is registered prospective suppliers must take shares in proportion to the number of their cows, and these shares must cover the whole purchase money of the creamery. They will be asked to pay up a reasonable proportion, namely, a quarter of these shares, and that payment will be made by a half-crown before registration and a half-crown after registration and just when operations are about to begin. That will leave for every pound a balance of 15/-, and that will be collected by deductions from the price of milk over a period of, say, six or eight years. It will amount to a deduction of 6d. per share per month in the season of five months during which there is a flush milk supply. That will mean a half-crown per share per season.
