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Dáil Éireann díospóireacht -
Wednesday, 8 May 1935

Vol. 56 No. 5

Dairy Produce (Price Stabilisation) Bill, 1935—Committee Stage.

Sections 1 to 4, inclusive, agreed to.
SECTION 5.
Question proposed: "That Section 5 stand part of the Bill."

Perhaps the Minister would inform the House if levies will be collected between 31st March of this year and the time the Act comes into operation.

Perhaps it was an oversight on my part, but I overlooked that provision. What provision is there for that period?

Dr. Ryan

It is not under this section. This section only deals with the period before March 31st.

There is other provision later on?

Dr. Ryan

Yes.

Question put and agreed to.
The following amendments were on the Order Paper:—
Section 6. 1. In sub-section (1) to delete paragraph (a).—(Deputies Dillon and Braonáin).
2. In sub-section (2), line 31, to delete the words "each of the registers" and substitute the words "the register" and in lines 33 and 34 to delete the words "in the case of the register of distributors of non-creamery butter". —(Deputy O Braonáin).
Section 7. 3. To delete sub-section (1).—(Deputies Dillon and O Braonáin).
4. In sub-section (3), line 48, to delete the words "either of the registers" and substitute the words "the register".—(Deputies Dillon and O Braonain.)
5. To delete sub-section (4).— (Deputies Dillon and O Braonáin).
Section 9. 6. In sub-section (1), line 21, to delete all words after the word "Minister" to and including the word "applicable," line 21, and substitute the words "the following fee".—(Deputy O Braonáin).
7. In sub-section (1) to delete paragraph (a).—(Deputies Dillon and O Braonáin).
Section 11. 8. To delete sub-section (1).—(Deputy Dillon).
Section 17. 10. In sub-section (1) to delete paragraph (d).—(Deputy Dillon).

Amendment No. 1 is the first of a series of amendments which aim at cutting out of the Bill proposals for the registration of producers of non-creamery butter. The principle can be decided on amendment No. 1. If No. 1 is defeated amendments Nos. 2 to 8, inclusive, and amendment No. 10 would not be moved.

SECTION 6.

(1) The Minister shall cause to be kept the following registers, that is to say—

(a) a register (to be called and known and in this Act referred to as the register of producers of non-creamery butter) of persons who sell non-creamery butter of their own manufacture, and

(b) a register (to be called and known and in this Act referred to as the register of distributors of non-creamery butter) of persons who acquire non-creamery butter either for resale or for use in a butter factory.

(2) There shall be entered in each of the registers kept in pursuance of this section the full name, address and description of every person registered therein and, in the case of the register of distributors of non-creamery butter, a description of the premises in respect of which such person is registered in such register sufficient to identify such premises and the limits and extent thereof.

I move amendment No. 1. As the Chair has pointed out, this is one of a series of amendments designed to remove from the purview of this Bill persons who make butter in their own homes and sell it to their neighbours. It is proposed in this section to set up two registers, one to be known as the register of producers of non-creamery butter, and the other to be known as the register of distributors of non-creamery butter. The amendment proposes to delete the first-named register, because I am convinced that this Bill represents the straw that is going to break the camel's back. The Government, through a combination of their agricultural and political policy, have gradually stripped the farming community of every profitable branch of agriculture in which they were in the habit of indulging. We know what the result of the Government's policy has been on the cattle trade as a whole. We know what the result of the Government's policy has been on the value of calves. I am asking the House to remember that calves are a very valuable by-product, not only of the dairying industry, but of the whole manufacture of butter. Three years ago calves were worth up to £5 apiece, or taking the most conservative figure, we might say an average of £3 apiece. These calves can be purchased to-day for 12/6 or 15/-, and that money is available only because the Minister gives a bounty of 10/- on each calf skin which is tendered for export.

Every cowkeeper in the country was sorely struck by the collapse of the price of calves, and the remaining consolation for the destruction that had been wrought upon his business was the price of home-made butter that he sold to his neighbours either directly or through the intermediary of shopkeepers. Now that remaining source of income is virtually to be destroyed, because every lb. of such butter is to be made liable to a levy of 4d. If, as is widely stated, there are many parts of this country in which home-made butter is bringing in from 7d. to 8d. per lb. at the present time, what will be the feeling of farmers who derive a modest income from that business when, out of the 8d. per lb., they are asked to pay a levy of 4d. per lb.? There may be districts in which farmers get 9d. or 10d. per lb., but, even in their case, the imposition of a levy on that slender source of income is an intolerable injustice. It has become the practice in this House to jeer at anyone who suggests that the sufferings of the farming community are very real, very exasperating and very tragic. I want to draw attention to a case in point, that of an individual small farmer who came before the open court in President de Valera's constituency, and communicated to it the result of the agricultural policy, the cattle policy and the milk policy of the present Government upon him and his family. John Clune, of Ballymarkham, Quin, owed £10 14s. 10d. in respect of rates. He said that he and his eight in family were actually starving. He had the loan of a cow from a neighbour for some time, but the animal had gone back. He had not eaten a bit of meat for the past two years, and his children had to walk to school every morning after eating dry bread at their breakfast. A bit of dry bread was all they could receive for their lunch as well. Mr. McMahon, rate collector, said there was no doubt about it, the defendant was actually starving. "There is another farmer named William Clune," went on the rate collector, "who is starving also, and a man named Daniel Clune, who has two old cows worth only £1 apiece, yet I have to process them." The justice said he had to give decrees, but, of course, where there was nothing to seize, the sheriff could make a return of "no goods." Those farmers are being reduced to starvation by the Government policy, and I invite Deputies who are in the habit of weeping crocodile tears over the people who died of hunger in Adrigole—those phantom people who never existed and who never died in Adrigole, except in the imagination of Deputies of that side of the House—to realise that the line of policy which their own Party is following at the present time is resulting in a situation in the President's own constituency in which the rate collector must come before the court and state in public that the men whom he is bound to summon for default of rates are literally and actually starving, their children going to school after having had nothing but dry bread for their breakfast and no prospect of anything but dry bread for their lunch. In that state of affairs, the neighbours of those very starving people, who may be keeping starvation from the door by whatever little money they get for the butter they manufacture at home—for Clare is not a county where there is a large number of co-operative creameries—are going to have whatever little money they earn in making that butter, and selling it in the neighbouring market, docked to the tune of 4d. per lb.

Now, I ask the Minister why does he think that that is necessary? If he can find thousands and tens of thousands to subsidise wheat, if he can find more than a million of money to subsidise beet, if he can find tens of thousands to promote a crazy turf scheme, can he not find in the Central Fund or in the Supply Services sufficient money to finance whatever adjustments require to be made in the price of creamery butter or exported manufactured butter without levying off that section of the community which is known to everybody to be on the verge of starvation; that section of the community some members of which are now starving; now forced to come into court and raise the defence of starvation against the claim of a public authority for rates, and raise it successfully, so successfully as to secure the sympathetic consideration of the judge presiding over the proceedings, and a clear statement from him that although the letter of the law demanded that he should issue a decree he did not expect for a single moment that any serious attempt would be made to levy? If you go on piling up burdens of this character upon people who are already driven to desperation, surely you must realise that it is going to produce a degree of demoralisation all through the country which will be beyond the power of all of us to control. Those people are made to think that their homes and their establishments are liable to destruction by the Government at any moment. Their sense of property, their sense of security and their sense of permanence are being undermined. Those are the people who ought to be the steadying influence on the national life. Those small farmers who secured and whose fathers secured by terrific exertions the freehold of their homesteads are now being forced to the realisation that it is the intention of the Fianna Fáil Government to go on bleeding them and exploiting them until economic pressure will do to them what direct action on the part of the landlords was entirely unable to achieve. You have reduced thousands of small farmers of this country to the condition which the court has found John Clune to be in. This proposal to tax to the tune of about 30 per cent. the home-made butter of a vast number of small farmers up and down this country is going to help to reduce even more of them to the same condition as that in which John Clune finds himself at the present time.

There has been no rational case made in this House for the imposition of such a burden on those people. It is calculated to work terrible hardship. It will produce comparatively little, and whatever little money it will produce could be much more justly and expediently produced from the Supply Services. To tax one section of the community who are already frightfully hard pressed is a gross and intolerable injustice. Deputies not only from this side of the House but from the other side of the House as well ought to have the courage to get up and say so, and make it clear to the Minister that, whatever other part of the scheme can be tried out, this definitely must be dropped.

I just want to say one or two words on the effect of this new levy as far as individual cases of which I personally am aware are concerned. In or around the south of the county where I come from a great number of small farmers do a sort of private butter-selling business, on which they are able to earn a very substantial weekly revenue. Those farmers have in many instances a small private clientele, and now they are reduced to the stage of having either to "butter-run," like the rum-running in America, or pay up money which they cannot possibly find out of their business. I know that in the town of Athy several of the traders take from those private individuals butter which, on the barter system, they are able to use as a contra account against their grocery business. That, in fact, is to be completely wiped out, and it is amazing, when one investigates the ramifications of it, what it really means to those people who are struggling to make ends meet by those means. I know of people who would be termed ranchers—that word which we hear so often in this country—who have been reduced to living by butter churning in the last six months. Now, if this Bill becomes law they will be undoubtedly denied that and robbed of it. Whether this Bill has been sent ahead to traders and shopkeepers I do not know but I am told that it is being put in force already. I do not know whether it is law now or not; neither do I know whether legislation while still passing through this House can be legally applied before it reaches the Statute Book. It seems to me that this Bill is already law and that shopkeepers have to make returns and charge the 4d. in the lb. on butter brought in by the farmers. I would like to hear from the Minister is there any possible chance of remedying that and getting rid of this hardship.

Deputy Minch seems to be under a misapprehension as regards the particular proposal for the tax on farmers' butter. It is not yet law, and I hope that this House will have sense enough to prevent it ever becoming law. On the original discussion on this Bill I said that the strongest opposition should be offered to it. In this particular matter neither I nor my constituency have any axe to grind. My constituency is not largely made up of farmers who make up their own butter. It is a creamery county, but one has to see that this Bill is entirely fair to other interests engaged in the dairy and butter trade. Across the border, in Clare, this particular provision will bear very heavily, and with very great hardship upon the farmers. Innumerable farmers in Clare live upon the produce of one or two cows and make their own butter. They live four or five miles away from a creamery, but, even if they were within easy reach of a creamery, it would not pay them to send the milk of one or two cows to the creamery. These farmers are really no better off, and hardly as well off as labourers and they will be very hard hit by this Bill. Nine-tenths of their source of income has gone in the lessening of the value of the calf. These farmers came into the markets in Limerick and Abbeyfeale, in years gone by; they bought young calves and reared them for ten or 12 months and then sold them. The main portion of their income was derived in that way, and since that has disappeared the only thing remaining to them is the sale of the few pounds of butter they were able to make.

Deputy Dillon quoted an instance of a case in Clare, and he gave it as an example of the poverty of the ordinary small farmers in Clare. I have the actual report of the case here. It was tried before District Justice Gleeson at Ennis District Court and was the prosecution of a farmer for the nonpayment of rates. When the case of John Clune, Ballymarkham, Quin, was called, the defendant who owed £10 14s. 10d. said that he and his eight in family were actually starving. He had a loan of a cow from a neighbour for some time, but even that had now gone back. He had not eaten a bit of meat for the past two years and his children had to walk to school every morning after eating dry bread at their breakfast. A bit of dry bread was all they could receive for their lunch as well.

I said some days ago that a man with one cow had very little butter, but in the case of this man who was prosecuted for a debt of over £10, even if he had the one cow, his children would still have to go to school on dry bread because he would have to sell the butter from the milk of the cow. The sad portion of this particular case to which I have referred is that the rate collector subsequently got up in court and said: "There was no doubt about it the defendant was actually starving." Deputies in this House have serious responsibility put upon them when legislation is passing. If they fail to realise that responsibility and vote for measures that will put additional hardship upon men like the man whose case I have mentioned, and upon the small farmers in Clare and Kerry generally and, also, in some of the mountainous districts of my own constituency they will be doing a very great wrong. I cannot possibly vote for such a proposal and I hope the commonsense and sympathy of the majority of the Deputies in this House will compel them to vote for an amendment to delete this provision.

Dr. Ryan

Deputy Dillon made a very general speech introducing this amendment which he might very properly have reserved for another occasion, such as an Estimate. I feel that Deputy Dillon was driven to make a general statement like that because there was not much of a case to make against this levy on butter. He instanced a case of butter sold at the present time for 8d. per lb. and said that out of that 4d. will be taken. That shows his gross ignorance of the whole position. The man who makes a statement of that kind cannot know anything about the position or about what the Bill is going to do. It is possible that Deputy Dillon, and people like him, are prepared to make statements like that, which they must know to be untrue, for political reasons, but in doing so they are doing more harm to their own Party because no one believes what they tell them now. Deputy Dillon talked about small farmers who are going to be injured by this position, that is small farmers selling direct to the consumer. There are plenty of farmers in the country, and a very big number of small farmers, supplying creameries and supplying their butter to grocers which the Deputy does not want to deal with by amendment. With respect to the class who supply butter direct to the consumer, and not the case of the farmer bringing his butter into the grocer, Deputy Dillon was concerned, and sought to amend the Bill in that direction.

There is no use in having a misconception as to the meaning of my amendment. The object of my amendment was to raise a general principle on one particular amendment, and at one time, instead of having 40 amendments down all depending on the first on the Paper. I made it perfectly clear as to what I wanted. I wanted to deliver all butter made at home and sold to the consumer free from the levy. My amendment may not succeed in preventing that, because I did not go into all the details, but my object is to prevent any butter manufactured in an Irish home and consumed by a consumer in Saorstát Eireann from paying a levy. That may be right or it may be wrong but it is what I am aiming at.

It means non-creamery and non-factory butter.

Dr. Ryan

The Deputy's contention appears to be absolutely ridiculous. If it is true what he has said now that he intends to include all such butter, then he is really more foolish than I took him to be, and that is saying a lot. He puts in an amendment to delete paragraph (a). If he had put in an amendment to delete the sub-section, which would have covered all the words, it would have been easier than to pick out paragraph (a). But he proposes to take out paragraph (a) and to leave in paragraph (b), which refers to grocers.

Surely paragraph (b) refers to persons who buy farm butter for resale to a butter factory?

Dr. Ryan

For resale or for use in a butter factory.

Does it not apply to a person who buys farm butter for resale to a butter factory?

Does it include that person?

Dr. Ryan

It does.

Either it applies to those people or it does not. Does it apply to persons who buy farm butter for resale to a factory or does it not?

Dr. Ryan

It applies to them, amongst others.

The Minister should read his own Bill.

Dr. Ryan

Because I caught Deputy Dillon out on this point, he wants to get away with it. He is not half so foolish as he appears to be. The Deputy was satisfied to exclude those who supplied butter direct to consumers. Paragraph (b) says "a register (to be called and known and in this Act referred to as the register of distributors of non-creamery butter) of persons who acquire non-creamery butter either for resale or for use in a butter factory."

Do not be making a fool of yourself.

Dr. Ryan

That paragraph refers to resale by the grocer to the consumer. On second thoughts, the Deputy wants to include those also.

Nonsense.

Dr. Ryan

If the Deputy is so foolish as not to see the meaning of his own amendment, we shall pass to another point. The Deputy spoke in the superlative, as usual. He talked of taxing 30 per cent. of the farmers. A few minutes afterwards he said that tax would produce comparatively little.

I am sorry to interrupt the Minister. He must not have been listening very carefully to what I said. I said that the 4d. levy affected a certain percentage and that it represented a tax of 30 per cent. on the farmers whom it affected. I did not try to estimate the number of farmers who manufacture butter in their homes.

Dr. Ryan

I am sorry I misunderstood the Deputy. I want to inform Deputy Minch that the greater number of small farmers who do this butter-selling in Kildare—who take their butter to the retailer in Athy—are not covered by this amendment. If Deputy Minch wanted to argue the case of these particular farmers, he should have moved for the deletion of (b) as well as (a). Technically speaking, this Bill includes retrospective legislation, but it only seeks to carry on the 1932 Act until this Act comes into operation. The 1932 Act was in operation until the 31st March of this year. There will be an interval before this Bill becomes law. The retrospective provisions seek to collect the levy from those who would otherwise have been liable to pay the levy if the other Act had continued. Any new classes being brought into this Bill do not become leviable until the Bill becomes law. Deputy Bennett says it is not yet law, and he hopes it will never become law.

That particular provision.

Dr. Ryan

Deputy Bennett was the one member of the Opposition who voted for the Bill.

The Deputy referred to the section.

I referred to the amendment.

Dr. Ryan

The Deputy will be the most popular member in the country if he can please the creamery farmers of Limerick by getting the best possible price for them and, at the same time, please the Clare farmers by getting a good price for them and taking nothing from them. He says that the levy will bear heavily on Clare farmers. How do the Clare farmers get rid of their butter?- The greater part of Clare butter is sold to the factories—much the greater part. The price the factory agents are paying now for that butter, because they read the schedule in this Bill and know it is going to be retrospective so far as they are concerned, is 8½d. per lb., as against 6d. last year. That is the effect of the Bill on Clare farmers, if Deputy Bennett wants to know. But Deputy Bennett does not want to know. A thing like that does not suit him. Perhaps I may appeal to Deputies to try to follow this problem in a reasonable way. I do not believe that Deputy Dillon is going to be convinced, no matter what I say, that this is both a just provision and a beneficial provision to the makers of farmers' butter. If the Deputy is prepared to listen to reason and to judge the matter for himself he will see that the farmer who is making farmers' butter is going to get more under this Bill than he would otherwise get. We must start at the point at which there is no levy or bounty at all to get an understanding of the position. Creamery butter is quoted at 76/- at the present time, and the subsidy which we pay out of State funds is about 5/- more than pays the tariff into Great Britain. If we had not this Bill, the creameries would get 81/- for any butter they might export. They would naturally sell their butter at home also for 80/- or 81/-. They would sell to any wholesaler at home who would offer them 81/—the price they would be getting on export—and that butter would be retailed at 10½d. per lb.

Creamery butter?

Dr. Ryan

Yes. That would be the position if this Bill were not in operation.

What would be the position if this section were not in operation?

Dr. Ryan

Perhaps Deputies would allow me to come to the section. Deputy Dillon started out on general economic policy. I am sticking, at least, to butter. The retail price for farmers' butter is related to the price of creamery butter. The relation differs in each district. In the town of Wexford, in the butter market to which I was most accustomed in my young days, farmers' butter fetched sometimes 2d. per lb. more than creamery butter. In most other places, the price of farmers' butter is 2d. below that of creamery. Taking the country as a whole, farmers' butter sells about 2d. per lb. below creamery butter. It would at any rate be 1½d. less. If this Bill were not in operation, farmers' butter would be selling at 9d.

Dr. Ryan

The whole Bill. I shall come to the section later.

What price does the Minister say creamery butter would be sold at if this Bill were not in force?

Dr. Ryan

With the present State subsidy, 81/-.

What would it be without the tariff?

Dr. Ryan

The world price is 76/-. If there were no tariff, that would be the price. If Deputies accept what I have said, that would mean a retail price of 10½d. for creamery butter and farmers' butter may be taken as selling at 1½d. less—that is, 9d. per lb. That would be the position of we dropped this Bill and carried on a Government subsidy and nothing else. In anticipation of the retrospective provisions of this Bill, creamery butter is being retailed at 1/5. That has the effect of bringing the price of farmers' butter up to 1/3.

Dr. Ryan

At present. It is, perhaps, different in some places. In the town of Wexford, it would be 1/7. In other places, it would be 1/2, but 1/3 would be about the average price. The creamery is getting an artificial price of 1/5 which would otherwise be 10½d. and, for that advantage, the creamery is paying 4¼d. in levy. In justice, the farmer ought to pay something into the pool that has created that position which enables him to get 1/3 per lb., if he does get it—a question which we shall come to later. The farmer did not pay any levy on butter that was delivered direct to consumers during the past three years. He certainly did not pay any levy on his own butter, and I think that the creamery suppliers who are supplying their milk to the creamery and buying butter back from the creamery are, in the majority of cases at least, paying the ordinary price for butter, so that the supplier to a creamery is paying the levy on butter used in his own house, but that does not apply to the farmer who produces the butter in his own house and uses it in his own house. We are not going to collect the levy from that man under this Bill. Farmers' butter is disposed of in three ways. It is sold direct to the consumer, or to a factory, or to a trader or grocer who may re-sell it to the consumer or pass it on direct to the factory or through an agent.

The most remunerative way to dispose of the butter, from the point of view of the farmer, is to sell the butter direct to the consumer, and the least remunerative way is to send it direct to the factory or, through an agent, to the factory where it is processed and eventually exported mostly. During the winter, of course, most of the farmers' butter is sold direct to the consumers or, at least, to the consumers via the grocer or trader, but during the summer months the greater part of the farmers' butter is a surplus on the local market and finds its way to the factory. It is rather exceptional, I think, for a farmer to be able to find a direct market to the consumers all the year round. In the majority of cases in this country the farmers find a market for all their butter, during the winter months, direct to consumers, but during the summer months they have to find a market for their butter either through the factories or through agents for the factories who find an export market for the butter in that way. The law of supply and demand operates to a great extent at the different seasons of the year. There is more demand for butter from various sources during the winter and the farmer, very often, can sell his butter to the factory at an advantageous price, or he can find a consumer to buy it direct. The result of that was that the consumer got the butter much cheaper than if he had to pay for farmers' butter as compared with creamery butter. Accordingly, the effect of this amendment would be that a farmer producer, who was selling to consumers, no matter how large his holding might be——

Or how small!

Dr. Ryan

Yes—no matter how large or how small—would be exempt from the levy, while the farmer supplying the grocer, the factory, or the creamery would not be exempt.

Surely, that is not honest. The Minister knows that, for the convenience of the House, amendments are drafted in the simplest possible form and that it is customary to put amendments in that form. The object of this amendment, whether it has been effectively drafted or not, is to arrange that no butter manufactured in an Irish house and consumed by a national of Saorstát Eireann, within the jurisdiction of Saorstát Eireann, shall be liable to a levy.

Dr. Ryan

I must say that I find it very difficult to believe that the Deputy was not clever enough to draft the amendment in the proper way, if what he says is correct. He had a great many amendments to the Pigs and Bacon Bill.

This particular amendment has to do only with the deletion of paragraph (a) of sub-section (1) of Section 6.

Dr. Ryan

Yes, but that particular amendment covers many other things. The Deputy put down about 60 amendments on the Pigs and Bacon Bill, so that it is not beyond him to put down 14 or 15 amendments on a Bill of this kind.

Yes, but the Minister should remember that there were about 160 amendments on the Pigs and Bacon Bill.

Dr. Ryan

Another consideration that we have to bear in mind is that very often, in this country, we have the position, in a great many places, of creameries being started—particularly those started in the last seven or eight years, since 1927—because there was a surplus of farm butter in the district and the farmers got together and agreed to support a creamery whenever it would be started. In the last three or four years there was a temptation for the farmers in such districts to leave the creamery and go back to making farmers' butter. As a result of that, they struck two severe blows against the creameries in this way, because they withdrew their support from the creameries and set up in competition against the creameries in that way.

Where did that happen?

Dr. Ryan

There are at least four creameries that have been hit in that way.

What about the number of cows?

Dr. Ryan

The number of cows has gone up.

In the creamery areas?

Dr. Ryan

The number of cows has gone up.

And the amount of employment on the land has gone down.

Dr. Ryan

Very often, in a case like that, it is a question of six or seven public-spirited men getting together in a district and organising a creamery of that sort and becoming guarantors in the bank for an overdraft; and when other farmers withdraw their support from the creamery, the guarantors are left in the lurch, and it was not fair that the provisions of the last Act should operate as they did in favour of those farmers who are leaving the creamery, and that it should operate against those persons who were carrying on.

Is there not legislation to prevent that kind of thing happening?

Dr. Ryan

No.

Is there not such legislation in a previous Act?

Dr. Ryan

No—not in that case. You cannot compel them, under the present law, to stick to the creamery. I think that, as far as fair play and justice, at any rate, go, nobody can deny that the farmer who is making farmers' butter is just as much liable to pay this levy as the farmer who supplies the creamery. Now, I want to come to the point also that, apart from the justice of the case—because, perhaps, there are Deputies here who are not prepared to appeal to the farmers' sense of justice, but very much more inclined to appeal to the farmers' sense of avarice, or whatever you like to call it, and to blame the Government——

Surely, the Minister ought to know all about that!

Dr. Ryan

I do not claim to know all about everything, like the Deputy. I do claim to know more about most things than the Deputy. I want to supply Deputies opposite with the argument that we would be more inclined to use, and that is to try to convince the farmer that he would be actually better off under this system than the other, leaving the question of justice out altogether. When we were operating the 1932 Act for the first year there was only a levy on creameries and on factories. In the second year we tried to get a levy on distributors, as they are referred to here—people such as grocers and those who buy from farmers in the different towns, and distribute butter to consumers. But it was only about July, 1934, that we succeeded in levying 4,400 of those distributors. The result was that we collected a fair amount of money, and were able to give a bounty of 3½d. instead of 2½d. to the exporters of factory butter.

Is the Minister able to tell us what percentage of that went back to the farmer?

Dr. Ryan

Yes. If the Deputy will look up the Irish Trade Journal he will see that for farmers' butter during the month of June—that is the month before the levy or the bounty started—and the months of July, August and September the prices were: June, 78/11; July, 80/9; August, 87/3, and September, 86/11, so that the farmer got a big benefit out of the collection of that levy.

The price of butter always goes up during that period.

Dr. Ryan

I expected that some Deputy would say that. I think I have already said that the price of farmers' butter ought to bear some relation to the price of creamery butter. Creamery butter on the export market was realising a certain sum all the time. Of course, as far as we here were concerned it was getting 100/- all the time, but in case there should be any point made out of the value of factory butter on the export market I have got the prices made out, and they do not show any increase during those four months on the export market. That is to say, the world price of factory or creamery butter shows no increase during those four months. Deputies from Kerry, for instance, will know that during the months of August and September the price of butter went up because there was a larger bounty being paid on the export of factory butter.

The Minister, of course, is aware that during that period there is a good deal of butter bought for cold storage.

Dr. Ryan

Yes, to a great extent, but if the Deputy will look up the prices in the Irish Trade Journal he will find that, as compared with the period I am dealing with, prices did not go up by anything like that in the previous years. I have already explained that under this Bill every farmer must be registered, provided he is going to sell butter, or he must sell to a registered person. In that way it is hoped to get a levy on all this butter in order to build up the fund and so that the export bounty may be as high as possible on factory butter. That is what is going to raise the price of butter all round. There is no doubt about that. The levy on non-factory butter is payable by the last registered person who receives it. If exported no levy is payable. If a registered person buys butter in a town, and if he sends it to a registered person—that is a butter factory—he pays no levy. Neither does the farmer. If the factory exports that butter there is no levy on it, but instead there is a bounty of 25/-.

What is going to regulate the price paid to the farmer whose butter is bought for resale or for export?

Dr. Ryan

As a matter of fact the factories have already regulated this in anticipation of this Bill because the factory owner knows what he is going to get for his butter on the export market. He knows that he will get a bounty of 25/- under this Bill. He knows what he can give for butter, and if he has an agent in the town he can tell the agent what to pay. As a result of the publication of this Bill, butter for the factory is now 8½d. per lb. as against 6d. this time last year. The factory owner knows that he has to pay a levy on all butter if he sells it on the home market.

But, suppose, some of the butter is exported and some of it is consumed at home, how is anyone going to have precise information about that?

Dr. Ryan

The Department will know about the butter that is exported.

For instance, how will I know?

Dr. Ryan

If a farmer is selling butter he need not know whether it is going to be exported or sold at home. As a general rule, he has to sell at the price that he can get. The factory owner knows what he is going to get for what he exports. He knows that he will get, say, 90/-, including the bounty, and naturally he will not sell to anyone inside for less than 90/-. That is how it works if we get everyone registered, and if we get the levy on all butter, we calculate that a levy of 39/- per cwt. will give a bounty of 25/-, but if any exemptions have to be given, then the bounty will become less than 25/- and the price will be less for all butter.

If a farmer does not sell to a registered dealer is the position this, that he must then register himself?

Dr. Ryan

Yes.

If he sells his butter to a registered dealer who passes it on to a factory, is it the factory that pays the levy and not the registered dealer?

Dr. Ryan

The last person—in that case the factory.

I would like to know from the Minister if he would be prepared to consider sympathetically an amendment to paragraph (b) of the section. I have in mind a number of small people who sell butter over the counter. They are to suffer a deduction of 4d. per lb. I would be glad if the Minister would consider sympathetically an amendment dealing with that class of person. It seems to me that this Bill will be an advantage to people in districts where creameries operate, but that it will be a disadvantage in areas where creameries do not operate. There may be the danger of people in these districts starting a scheme of, shall I say, butter-running. What I have in mind is that they will not register. They may come to an arrangement to make the Bill unworkable. I am not suggesting that that is in the mind of anybody, but I fear that there is going to be that difficulty in operating the Bill.

Dr. Ryan

Evidently I have not convinced the Deputy yet.

I am sorry if I am giving the Minister too much trouble. But I am anxious to get all the information I can from him so that I will be in a position to explain the Bill to people who consult me.

Dr. Ryan

I accept that. I know that the Deputy wants to take an honest view of the Bill, not like some of his leaders.

I was just reading a few minutes ago what the Kerry farmers thought of you.

Not in the House.

Dr. Ryan

Perhaps if I deal with this in another way, I might convince Deputies.

You will not.

Dr. Ryan

I suppose I will not, but I will have a try anyway. Leaving the farmers out for a moment, and leaving this Bill out for a moment, and building up from what the factory is getting for its butter, suppose we were to pay this Government subsidy on creamery butter, plus 5/-, as we are doing, for creamery over the tariff, the factory would get 68/- to-day. The factories work on a cost of about 9/-, which leaves 59/-, which they have to distribute to the producers. That represents about 6¼d. If it is an agent or grocer who is buying that butter, the person who brings in the butter and sells it gets 6d. What would be the position with regard to other farmers' butter? I want Deputies to realise what would be the position of such a person apart from what is offered to him. If he gets in a good sample of butter from a farmer, he knows that he must sell the surplus which he has at 6d. Perhaps the price is 1/- or 1/2 to consumers just now, and he tries to get that. "After all," he says, "it is better to bring the price down to 10d. and to sell more, rather than to take 6d." That is what has been happening, I hold, for the last couple of years. The tendency was for consumers in the towns to get their butter at a price lower than that at which they need have got it, on account of this great disparity between what the factory butter was worth and what the consumer was prepared to pay, if he had to pay. What happened really was that the consumer, during the months of May and June, when there was a big surplus, was getting butter at 8d. or 9d. per lb. because the factory could only give 6d. for the surplus. Anybody can see that a grocer would prefer to sell the butter to a consumer for 8d. rather than to give it to the factory for 6d. I do not think that is necessary. If we are doing nothing else, it is just as well to put the levy on there and to say: "If you sell for 8d. you can sell at 1/- to the consumer with the levy of 4¼d." By building up the pool, they can sell for 1/- to the consumer. There is no doubt about that.

On the other hand, what is going to be the position under this Bill? Instead of getting the 68/-, which I mentioned, the factory would get to-day with the Government subsidy and with this bounty, another 25/-. Where they could pay 6¼d. to the agent or grocer they can now pay 9d. and, in that case, the grocer or trader who buys butter will give 8½d. or 8¾d., to the producer for his butter. There you have the first class, who are undoubtedly going to benefit. The people who have to sell a big surplus of butter to the factory are going to get their price increased from 6d. to 8½d. or 8¾d., and if they sell direct to the factory from 6d. to 9d. Take the case of the grocer who gets butter from the farmer. He cannot sell it all to consumers; he must sell some to the factory. He gets 8½d. from the factory and he is not going to sell it to the consumer unless he gets 1d. or 2d. more for his trouble in distributing it and collecting accounts and so on. He puts on the 4¼d. levy also and he can get that, and perhaps a little more. He gets 1/2 or 1/3. That is in the case in which the grocer is selling part of his butter to the consumer. How does the producer who is now selling his butter to the consumer fare? Remember that last year, when there was no levy, he was selling his butter against the grocer at 8d. a lb. Now the grocer is not selling at less than 1/2, and the producer selling butter to the consumer would get 1/2 also. If he has to pay the levy out of that, he is better off that he was last year. In addition to his being better off, the fund is much better off and we can improve the price of factory butter by 2½d. a lb. as a result.

I think Deputies ought to try to look at this in a reasonable way. We have to build up the fund to give the increased bounty on factory butter. We are attempting this year in this new Bill to give 25/- per cwt. on factory butter exported in order to lift up butter in price. We are giving that 25/- to give a good foundation to all prices for butter and we must get a fund somewhere to do it. I admit that it is a very popular thing to say that we ought to give that and collect nothing from the farmer. That is a very popular thing to say in the country, but Deputies ought to look at this matter in a reasonable way. I do not see why they should make a political question out of it. They ought to be as anxious to build up this fund as I am, in order to raise the price of factory butter.

We are quite prepared to give you time to show that you are incompetent.

Dr. Ryan

If Deputies will withhold criticism of this Bill until the middle of July, I shall be quite content to accept the verdict of the markets at that time. I am quite sure the markets will show that I am right, and perhaps Deputies, for their own sake, ought to take that advice because I have no doubt the markets are going to work out that way.

How will consumer be affected?

Dr. Ryan

The consumer who is getting creamery butter will not be affected. The consumer getting good farmers' butter will be paying more than he was paying this time last year, but he will be getting an article as good as or better than creamery. There is no reason why he should get it at 7d. or 8d. less as he was getting it last year. That is my idea of how this Bill is going to work out and, as I say, I think Deputies ought not to treat it in the way it has been treated up to this—as if there was no good whatever in this scheme. I think Deputies ought to see that if we are to raise the general price of butter by raising the lowest-priced butter, that is, factory butter, we must get a fund to do it. I say we can get that fund without in any way injuring any farmer, with the exception of one—there is only one farmer whom we are going to injure—and if that be so I think Deputies should be prepared to give the Bill a trial. To accept an amendment like this is, in the first place, not just, because, theoretically, you could make an exemption in the case of a man with 200 or 300 cows. There are, however, the small farmers in Clare, who were mentioned by Deputy Bennett, and in Kerry and those districts—more particularly Clare now, because the creameries are extending there and the local markets will not, therefore, be so valuable—who only have butter in summer time. We are going to give these a great benefit if we are able to raise their price for butter from 6d. to 8½d. I think Deputies should be prepared, therefore, to give this Bill as it stands a trial. I want to repeat that if you wait until the middle of July I shall be quite prepared to accept the verdict of the markets at that time. They will bear out what I say.

I tried to follow the Minister as closely as I could, but I confess I failed to appreciate his argument when he was speaking of the present price of butter. Possibly I am somewhat to blame for not following it, but I wonder if a similar difficulty has confronted other Deputies? It would, however, be impossible to follow the Minister's figures. If he will read over his statement, I think he will be quite prepared to admit that himself. It is quite impossible to follow the Minister's figures, no matter how attentively one listens to him. At one stage I thought the Minister said that the thing really worrying him was the damage that this amendment was going to do to the Fine Gael Party. I thought that was really what was ringing in his head, but he soon got on from that, though he did devote a little more attention to it at the end. I do not think, however, that he quite met the case. I gather that his argument is something like this: As a result of the bounty paid on the farmers' butter exported, dealt with by the factory or otherwise, the price will naturally be sent up. It will then react on the general price of farmers' butter all over the country. He will admit, I am sure, that that argument is independent altogether of where the bounty comes from.

Dr. Ryan

That is right.

Therefore, so far as this is concerned, the Minister could have achieved his object just as well by the method of paying the bounty directly out of ordinary taxation. We are in full agreement on that, apparently. Then why does he adopt what to the ordinary Deputy and to the ordinary farmer seems an extraordinarily complicated way of doing things? He will admit that ultimately it is the consumer who must pay for any increase the farmer may get. That being so, what is the precise advantage of this method as against paying it directly out of the Central Fund? There again it will be taxation. The Minister says when we demand that, we are making a popular appeal. But he must recognise that whether he calls it a levy or a tax, in either case it is a tax and it is paid by the consumer. Of course from the point of view of the Minister for Finance it has this advantage, it need not appear in his Budget statement; he can ignore it. It is, however, undoubtedly a tax. In any case, this bounty which is going directly to affect the price of farmers' butter exported and indirectly, according to the Minister, to affect the general price of farmers' butter, will be paid by the consumer—whether that is done out of the Central Fund or by a levy it does not matter.

A great deal of the elaborate argument that the Minister has put forward need not necessarily apply to this amendment, because it would still be possible to suggest a different scheme. All the money must come from the taxpayer, but it might be better, in the view of many people, if it came from the taxpayer by means of the Central Fund rather than through this particular levy. I am sorry the Minister did not realise that it was not merely the form of the amendment, but the spirit of it that was being debated. If the Minister will remember, it was last week that he asked for a hurried consideration of this Bill on the Committee Stage, and no difficulty was raised on this side of the House in giving him his Bill to-day, although it was realised at that moment that the Minister was taking the Committee Stage of the Bill rather hurriedly. I suggest it is not playing the game from the Minister's point of view if he now merely stands on the mere technicalities of the exact phrasing or the exact scope of the amendment when Deputy Dillon made it quite clear more than once what precisely he aimed at. Therefore, I can pass by the remarks of the Minister as to the exact form of the amendment.

There is one particular class with which the Minister has not dealt adequately. He has not dealt adequately with the particular class that the exact form of the amendment seems to cover. It is quite true that when the butter goes from the farmer to the last person who handles it in this country, it is the last person who will pay the levy. What the Minister has not made quite clear is, what reasonable guarantee is there that all of the increase of price will go back to the farmer? As a result of the bounties got by the man who handles the butter last and exports it, he will be in a better position, according to the Minister, to pay. That is the contention. The Minister surely must have heard complaints in connection with other bounties, that the bounties did not go back to the farmers.

Dr. Ryan

Not in connection with the butter bounty.

I do not see exactly why the same thing will not operate. When you are dealing with the individual farmer it seems to me that he may be in the same position as the farmer who deals in cattle at the present moment, and he will undoubtedly feel that he is not getting the advantage of the bounty, just as many of them who are dealing with cattle feel that they are not getting the advantage of the cattle bounty. I do not see how that can be avoided. The belief amongst the farming community is that the bounty does not accrue to the benefit of the farmer. Some of it may go back. The only point on which there may be disagreement among the farmers is as to the percentage of it that goes back. The bulk of them hold that the greater proportion of it does not go back. So long as you are dealing with creameries and organised bodies it may be a different thing, but when you are dealing with the individual farmer only a portion of the bounty at best will go back. The effect so far as the butter sold in a country town is concerned would seem to be as follows. At present it is in competition with creamery butter. There is the intrinsic selling value, i.e. the market value apart from considerations of tariffs, bounties and other things which at present raise the price of creamery butter. There is according to the Minister, a lag in the price of ordinary farmers' butter in comparison with creamery butter.

Under this provision you are going to raise the price of farmers' butter on the consumer. At the present moment creamery butter is sold at a certain price. The present Act will not affect the price of creamery butter. You are now going to put farmers' butter on the same footing so far as price is concerned. It will be competing with creamery butter, but at an enhanced price. It will, therefore, it seems to me from the market point of view, be at a decided disadvantage in comparison with the present situation. I am speaking now of butter sold in the ordinary way in the towns. When the farmer's wife brings her butter into town and sells it to the consumer what is the position? Either she must register herself as a butter producer or sell the butter to a registered person. The farmer can no longer sell to the consumer. I am leaving out of account the proviso for the exceptionally small amount that he can sell under this Bill to the consumer. It may be taken that the farmer can no longer sell directly to the consumer unless he is registered. He has either, therefore, to go to all the trouble and inconvenience and to overcome all the objections that the ordinary farmer will have to a process of that kind, or he cannot sell to the consumer. And all for what? He will feel really that he will not register. Many of the farmers who deal directly with the consumer at the present moment will not register. They will prefer to go direct to somebody who will get registered and act between them and the consumer. The amount of butter in question may not be large, but there is not a country town in Ireland or a person supplying a country town that will not be affected by it. If the farmers are to avoid the inconvenience and the harassing incidents of registration and everything connected with it, they will have to sell through a middleman, a thing that cannot be done without a loss in profit to the farmers. I am absolutely sure that quite a number of them will choose that particular method of doing it rather than go to the trouble of registering.

The Minister himself said that the sale direct to the consumer was the most remunerative method for the farmer. He said that direct sale from the producer to the consumer was the most remunerative method for the farmer in dealing with his butter. That system is precisely what this Bill, as it stands at the present moment, is going to kill. All the arguments of the Minister will not, I am sure, induce people to register. Quite a number of them will not register. They will save themselves the inconvenience and they will go to the middleman. They will get the middleman to act and to undertake the inconvenience of registration and keeping accounts, and the liability of being swooped down upon and charges made against them by officials that they are selling more butter than is in their books. All that will happen and they will prefer to get rid of it and leave it to the middleman. Thus, the middleman will be unnecessarily brought in as a result of this legislation at a cost to the farmer of letting him have some of his already too small profits.

Whether this is going to have, as the Minister suggests, the effect of sending up prices it is impossible to say. It may be that it may somewhat raise prices. There may be something in the Minister's argument that it will send up prices, but that it will do so to the extent it ought to I doubt. Even if it did send up prices there will undoubtedly be a great amount of harassing of the ordinary producer of butter. There will be on the part of officials the suspicion that the farmer is making efforts to avoid the operation of the law in various ways. It will mean a great deal more vigilance, more inspection and more prying into one's business. There will be examinations and there will be accusations that the farmers are keeping false accounts and that their returns are not true. There will, undoubtedly, be a crowd of these complaints and there will be continued acerbity on both sides, the officials blaming the farmers and the farmers blaming the officials. All that sort of thing could be avoided as I gathered from the Minister and the same results achieved if he had adopted the expedient of raising this tax in another way. The Minister admits that for any increased price that the farmer may get the consumer will pay. It is, therefore, a tax. If the money were provided from the Central Fund, it would be a tax on the consumer too, but perhaps a different body would have to deal with it. It seems to me, so far as the administration of the Act is concerned, that the Minister is laying up for himself a store of trouble that could be avoided if he could get the Minister for Finance to face up to the situation and pay the money concerned out of the Central Fund, that is to say, the money needed to pay the bounty on butter. If that were paid directly out of the Central Fund it would save all this to the farmer. The only disadvantage in that procedure is that it would be openly acknowledged in the Budget. But in comparison with the loss, amount of trouble and inconvenience and the grave annoyance caused to the people when this Bill is in operation, I think it would be a much better expedient if this provision were left out of the Bill. For that reason, I again ask the Minister to consider the full effect of what is sought to be achieved under this amendment, and I ask him to meet the matter in a reasonable way.

To my mind, there is only one way of meeting Deputy O'Sullivan's argument. We have heard from the Opposition Benches— and it is true—that 75 per cent. of the taxation of this country is paid by the farmers. Now Deputy O'Sullivan in his very nice argument tells us that as the Bill stands this levy will be paid by the consumer. Then why have it as a tax on the farmer who will pay 75 per cent. of it? I believe the consumer should pay 100 per cent., but Deputy O'Sullivan, in his argument, wants to tax the farmer 75 per cent. of this levy because that is what will happen if it is paid out of the Central Fund. The Deputy's argument is rather a peculiar one. I would like to hear that argument further developed from the Opposition Benches.

What I am really concerned about in this connection is the tax on the consumer. I wonder if the Minister has considered the effect this tax will have on the principal town in his own constituency. I think the Minister is well aware that almost 90 per cent. of the butter consumed there is farmers' butter. This tax will considerably hit the consumer. I think the Minister also knows that even though this is the first occasion on which a tax has been placed on farmers' butter that when a tax was placed on creamery butter in that area the farmers' butter was raised to the same extent. What is to happen is that a great many of the small farmers who bring in small consignments of butter to the markets will not register at all as butter providers. They will sell in bulk to the middleman and the consumer will be mulcted as much as 4d. per lb. and in some cases perhaps 6d. per lb. extra for his butter. I do know, as far as Wexford is concerned, that when a retailer or a huckster gets hold of butter in the market and poor people have to buy that butter in quarter or half pounds they have to pay at the rate of 6d. or 8d. per lb. more than they would have to pay in the market. In that way it is going to be felt very severely by the consumers. I certainly admit that the farmers should get something in this connection; but, like Deputy O'Sullivan, I suggest to the Minister that the proper way to get it is by the medium of taxation in a straightforward manner. I am deeply concerned with my own constituency because, as the Minister knows, there is very little creamery butter consumed there. So far as I am concerned, at any rate, I shall vote for the amendment.

I made substantially the same point on the Second Reading as Deputy O'Sullivan has made, and though I follow the explanation of the Minister as to the principles underlying this amendment and the section to which it is proposed, I am not convinced that the producer is going to get any advantage from this. The Minister may work out a theoretical scheme on paper that may look very well. I have a feeling, however, that has not been contradicted, that the consumption of creamery butter was on the increase in this country as against non-creamery butter, particularly farmers' butter. That being so, if farmers' butter has to bear a levy they will have to get a higher price and, as has been pointed out by Deputy O'Sullivan, an increasing number of the public who now buy farmers' butter in preference to creamery butter because of the price, will turn to creamery butter, because the margin between the two will be less and, therefore, the market will be limited. There is one aspect of this which I do not comprehend, and I should like to hear the Minister more fully on it—that is the case of factory butter. Butter for export will pay no levy. If I run a butter factory and buy butter in the market, blend it and export it, the Minister said that there is no levy on that butter. Do I not buy it, however, on the supposition that I will pay a levy? Where is the check?

Anyhow you will tell the person you are buying it from that you are paying the levy.

Of course I will. I could understand the position if the blender or manufacturer of butter confined his trade to export. If the Minister has given this careful consideration and is clear that there will be an advantage to the blender of butter and that, owing to that advantage, he will export the butter and, therefore, take a quantity off the market which will leave a lesser quantity to be bid for, and in that way put up the general level of prices, I should like to hear the Minister further on that aspect of the matter. I have given a little thought to that matter, but I have not convinced myself that the blender or manufacturer does not reap an advantage by being supposed to pay the levy while at the same time he does not actually pay it. I should like to hear the Minister develop that point.

Dr. Ryan

The Deputy has a factory and sends an agent to buy butter, knowing that he can get, say, 93/-, including the bounty——

Take it that there are two agents going to buy butter—one for selling at home and another for export.

Dr. Ryan

Let us take one agent who is going to do both. They can do both. He knows he can get 93/-, including the bounty. Therefore, I hold that that merchant will say, "93/- is what I will get for my butter if I export it, and I will not sell it at home at less than 93/-." Is not that simple enough? It does not matter whether he is going to export it or not.

Is the levy collected on butter exported?

Dr. Ryan

No, it is on the home consumed butter. I should have said that he will get 93/-, plus the levy of 39/-, on the home-consumed butter, otherwise he will not sell it.

Take a simple case. I am a shopkeeper buying butter and selling it and I register. When a person comes to sell butter to me I say, "The price for this butter is so much." I have to pay a levy of 4d. on that. I fix my price at the high figure and I pay him 4d. less. Is not that the position? Let us extend that. I am a big butter merchant with a factory and I go into the market and buy from nonregistered producers. Do I not put over the same trick on them?

Dr. Ryan

I do not follow the trick.

Will I not tell these people that the price is so much? I will say that I have to pay 4d. of a levy and down goes the price by 4d. Then I bring it to my factory and blend it and export it; but I do not pay the 4d. levy. How does the Minister catch me out?

Dr. Ryan

What was to prevent that merchant saying ten years ago that the British market had gone down by 10/- a cwt. and try to "cod" the people, if he was able? It is not so easy to do the farmers as all that.

I hope the Minister does not think I am putting any obstacle in the way. I am only endeavouring to understand this. I want the Minister to take it in that spirit, otherwise I am going to stop, because there is no use in our arguing at cross-purposes.

That is very nice.

You cannot get to the bottom of it in any other way. I am sure Deputy Corry has not got to the bottom of it if he spoke his mind. If he has, all I can say is that his intelligence is superior to mine. I hope Deputy Corry will be big enough to wait until the ignorant are instructed. His interjection has not been helpful, because he has put us off our path. If that was the intention the Deputy has been successful. An agent goes and buys butter for which nobody has assumed responsibility for a levy. I take it that an agent is in a position to buy from people who are not registered to sell. If I buy from a man who is not responsible for paying a levy, I want to know how the Minister can check the amount of butter I export or do not export. I want the Minister to enlighten me about this. I go to the market and buy at a price that assumes that the butter is to pay a levy, but it has not done so, and has not been handled by anyone that is registered.

It will not pay a levy.

I would take good care that it will not pay a levy. I want to know how the Minister will put up machinery to make it impossible for me not to pay the levy. I depress the market on the assumption that I am going to pay a levy, which I am not bound to pay by this Bill.

Dr. Ryan

A number of butter factories and non-manufacturing exporters export farmers' butter in one form or another and all are trying to make a living, so that there is very keen competition. I found that to be the case from experience. I think the Department, if asked for an opinion on prices, would say that they have paid, I would not say to the last farthing, but have gone closer to paying more for butter for export than is paid for any other commodity.

Would not the same argument that the Minister has used apply to the bounties on cattle? The price is known. What will be got is known. There are numbers of buyers in competition, so that exactly the same argument would apply to cattle as to butter. The Minister may deny that the bounty does not go back to the farmer. I am asking if both cases are not on exactly the same footing.

Dr. Ryan

Not now. Before the quota came on cattle there would be an exact parallel. The whole of the butter bounty went to the producers.

Deputy Corry does not believe that.

Dr. Ryan

The Department of Agriculture dealt with dozens of cases and traced them, and found that they were only making the ordinary profit of 5s. per head. Deputy Keating will agree that the bounties were going to the producers before the quotas came on.

There will be the same complaints now.

I would like if we left the bounties until we grasp this new conundrum of the Minister. I would like to get some enlightenment on this. A blender buys butter out of a pool of butter, any of which used for home consumption has to pay a levy, and any of which exported has not to pay a levy. Anybody that goes to buy that pool is going to buy it on the assumption that a levy is payable after it is bought, which means that the price paid will be depressed by the amount of the levy. That is very plain to me. I am surprised it is not plain to the Minister. It would be all right if I got 20 tons of butter on the assumption that I would have to pay the levy of 4d. per lb.

Dr. Ryan

It would be well if we could be clear on this. The Deputy is dealing with butter that may be sent to a factory or to a customer.

My point is that a blender of butter goes to the market and buys on the assumption that he will have to pay a levy of 4d. per lb.

That will be put forward anyway.

The butter was bought at 4d. per lb. less than would have to be paid for it, on the assumption that a levy would have to be paid.

Dr. Ryan

No. I do not know what the home market is like now, but if I had a factory and I bought butter I know that I could get 93/- per cwt. in the export market.

That is what you regulate your bounty on, so as to give the butter blender 93/- on the export market.

Dr. Ryan

He gets 93/- net after paying bounties and tariffs, and the butter is bought on that assumption. If anyone asks him to sell butter on the home market, he knows that he can get 132/-. The bounty is 39/-. It does not matter to him.

That should be clear now.

One at a time, please. Does it not make a very big difference to that blender and exporter whether he buys that butter at 6d. per lb. or 10d. per lb.?

Dr. Ryan

It does.

And the Minister has no check. He does not take into account at all the price at which he buys that butter. He takes into account only the price which he gets for the butter, and if he gets 93/- net on the export market the Minister gives him no subsidy. If he gets anything less, the Minister makes it up. Is not that roughly the position?

Dr. Ryan

Roughly, that is right.

If he cannot buy at a certain price and sell so as to get 93/- he will stop business there, and will look for a place on the home market. The crux—and I am afraid the Minister has overlooked it; the more he discusses it the clearer it appears to me that there is a flaw there—is that he buys in the market here from nonregistered producers, on the assumption that he is going to pay 4d. per lb. out of the price he gives them.

Dr. Ryan

No.

Just a moment, please. Has he not to compete with Mr. X, who is buying for the home market, we shall say?

Dr. Ryan

Yes.

And it is with his price he has to compete. That Mr. X has to pay 4d. per lb.

Dr. Ryan

Yes, but he realises 93/- net also.

Dr. Ryan

Mr. X. Otherwise he would have to go out of business.

He realises 93/- net?

Dr. Ryan

Yes, after paying the levy.

But he has to pay 4d., and the other fellow has not.

Dr. Ryan

He takes the 4d. off the consumer.

He gets 93/- net. That is what the Minister is alleging. I am not saying it is so.

It is clear now, anyway.

I do not think it is clear.

Not in practice.

I do not think it is clear in theory either. However, let the Minister think over that and others of us will think over it too. To me it seems pretty clear at all events that the factory man is getting a dead snip out of this. I have no doubt in the world about that. He is getting money for nothing. Anyway we have found it out in time, and there is time to correct it. I will not delay any further. I take it that this amendment means the deletion of both (a) and (b).

The relative portion of them.

It is a great pity I think that the Minister was not responsible for the Milk and Dairies Bill which went through here. If he had been responsible he would see that for the creamery districts under those two Bills it is heads they win and for the non-creamery districts tails they lose. After all, the production of butter in the creamery districts is the main industry of those districts. The production of farmers' butter, as such, is more of a side line to farming. There should not be so much importance attached to a levy on the little bit of farmers' butter as is attached to a levy on the creamery butter. Under that Milk and Dairies Bill the suppliers of milk to creameries have not to register, and here under this Bill if they produce a bit of butter the non-creamery suppliers have to register, so that there seems to be special treatment and consideration for the creamery districts as against the non-creamery districts. I see the viewpoint of the Minister pretty well. He looks at the state of the world butter market, on which if there were no interference at all at the moment the wholesale price of creamery butter would be about 8d. per lb., that is, of course, leaving out of account the British penal tariffs on our agricultural exports to Britain. By the previous Stabilisation Act the Minister, at the moment, is regulating the wholesale price of creamery butter on the home market at 141/-, just about 1/3 per lb. By so regulating the price at 1/3 the consumer has to pay a retail price of about 1/5. Of course, that is to the advantage of the butter producers, whether they are creamery butter producers or any other butter producers. To maintain those wholesale and retail prices the Minister levies something about 4d., I think, off all butter manufactured in the creameries, and he considers that it is equitable that the producers of farmers' butter should pay a similar levy. There are a few points which I should like the Minister to consider before he makes that conclusion absolute. The production of butter is the main industry of the creameries while it is only a side line with the farmers. Therefore, I do not know that the argument is so very strong that it is necessary to put a special levy on that little bit of farmers' butter, considering that the creamery districts are getting such an advantage from the community as a whole in receiving a wholesale price of about 7d. per lb. above the world price of Irish butter. The Irish consumer has to pay that, and I think that the creamery districts are met very well in that regard by the non-creamery districts. I do not think there is such a need that the levy should be extended. Further, it is admitted here by the Minister—tardily admitted, but admitted nevertheless— that there is a difference in price. The Minister put it, I think, at 1½d. per lb.; that in the same market the public will give 1½d. a lb. more for creamery butter than for farmers' butter. From the knowledge I have, the price is much higher. I know farmers' butter is retailing at 1/- whereas the retail price of creamery butter is 1/5. I think it is fairly general that there is, at least, 5d. a lb. in the difference. Let the wholesale prices be 3d. and 10d., I submit to the Minister that even if a complete case, everything considered, is made out for the principle of a levy on farmers' butter as well as creamery butter, it does not follow that a case is made that the levy should be the same, because, quite obviously, the cheaper article is not able to carry a levy equal in £ s. d. to the dearer article. So that if the Minister feels bound to go on the lines of this section, he certainly has not made a case that I am satisfied with, that he should go on these lines. If he does go on these lines, I think he would want us to admit that the cheaper grade is able to bear 39/- in the same way as the dearer. I think it is a perfectly reasonable presentation that if there must be a levy it should be on percentage of prices. I think that, in all the circumstances, a case has been made for the deletion of these paragraphs in sub-section (1).

I quite realise, of course, that that would mean taking the kernel out of the Bill. This is intended to catch farmers' butter that is not paying a levy. That was the object with which the Bill was introduced. If that provision is cut out of the Bill, then the Bill is no use. But I think, on the whole, that there is a good case for cutting it out. The point was made here that people heretofore who had a few cows used their surplus milk for rearing calves. I do not want to go into matters of general policy—we will have a field-day for that when we come to the Minister's Estimates—I only want to take the circumstances and conditions in which the Minister finds himself in dealing with the dairy and butter problem. I do not want to go outside that, and I think Deputies should discuss this matter rather from a national than a constituency point of view. They should not say: "My constituents are all creamery butter producers and therefore this Bill will do good to them." Neither should a Deputy say: "My constituents are non-creamery butter producers and therefore the Bill is bad for my constituents, and so I shall oppose it." No matter what sort of constituents we have there is a problem in butter that the Minister has to try to solve. He is putting a solution before us and we should consider it on that basis.

I think the Minister is not justified in asking the producers of farmers' butter to bear a levy which, to a great extent, will put them out of action. I believe, too, that if this section is left in, it will give a hidden profit to butter blenders and exporters. It will enable them to buy in the market on the assumption that they are to pay a levy on the butter they buy. The prices will be regulated by that assumption, whereas in fact they will not have to pay that levy and will sell their butter at the guaranteed price in the foreign market. I support the amendment.

In supporting this amendment, I am convinced that so far no good case has been made out for what Deputy Belton described as the kernel of this Bill. I have no doubt in my own mind that there are a good many of the Minister's own followers who do not believe in the principle of the Bill, and who actually believe that the principle of the Bill is a bad one. It would take much more than what the Minister said to convince any listener that the provisions of the Bill were a necessity and that the amendment should not be carried. Deputy Belton mentioned a point, that I endeavoured to stress on the Second Reading debate, to the effect that it is unfair and inequitable that districts that are not at present creamery districts should be made to carry their share of this levy. I would like to have some figures—I do not suppose the Minister could give them—as to the amount of farmers' butter consumed at home and as to the amount exported. I do not suppose the Minister could give these figures because I do not see any way in which they are ascertainable. My experience is that a very large portion of farmers' butter is sold to customers through the farmers' wives. The Minister has no account of that. That is the butter now that will be charged with the levy. Firstly I object, on principle, to this general registration and general levying that we have in every matter, in this country, at the present time. The Minister may think perhaps that he has some kind of scheme in this Butter Stabilisation of Prices Bill which is watertight, and that things which Deputy Belton fears will not happen; that is that butter merchants will represent to the farmers who have butter to sell that this butter has to pay a levy and that they will buy it cheaply in consequence. The Minister may think he has some kind of watertight scheme that will prevent that. Is the Minister satisfied that the scheme he has in operation at the present day with regard to returns from victuallers all over the country for carcases of beef or mutton is watertight and that the returns are correct?

Does he think so? All those schemes are made in such a way that they can be driven through. In this case, it is not the farmers but the farmers' wives with whom the Minister has to deal, and I sympathise with him. They are going to get the better of him. The farmer's wife who has been endeavouring to help her husband and family by making butter which is appreciated in her locality, is to be obliged to pay 4d. per lb. to the Government as a levy in order that some creamery district in Limerick, Tipperary or some other place may benefit, and not that her neighbours, who produce butter, may benefit. The amount of farmers' butter exported from the West is negligible, but the amount of butter sold to private customers is enormous. That is what will have to pay the levy. The Minister told us that it would be a lovely thing to be able to give the farmers a better price for their butter, and not to collect anything from them. He made that statement notwithstanding that, in reply to a question I put down recently, I was told that the farmers had contributed within the last two and a half years over £8,000,000 to the Exchequer. That amount has come out of the Guarantee Fund, and we are now to be beggars at the Minister's door. The Minister has collected a good deal from us, and if he does subsidise, to some extent, the export of farmers' butter, I say "Devil thank you; we paid you very well for it, and we have lost a lot over the transaction." The principle which we are endeavouring to remove from the Bill— that the non-dairying districts ought to pay for the dairying districts—is a bad principle. I was rather amazed at the manner in which the Minister quoted figures a short time ago. It was easy enough to follow the Minister's figures up to a point, but it was very hard to follow his reasoning when he referred to farmers' butter at 1/3, 8d., 6½d. and 6d. I think the Minister got rather into a mess about those prices. No matter how the Minister endeavours to bring into his clutches as tax-gatherers the farmers' wives, he will not be able to do it. He is up against a big difficulty. As I instanced a short time ago, there is evidence of that in the way in which other matters were dealt with recently in regard to returns which were to be made.

I have very real fears with regard to the point raised by Deputy Belton, that certain deductions will be made from the price being paid to farmers for their butter. The Minister says that a certain export price will not alone regulate what will be paid to the farmers but will influence all exporters to pay what might be considered a fair and a uniform price. At the same time, the Minister told us very rightly —I agree entirely with him—that there are quite a lot of butter factories endeavouring to carry on and that they will do everything they can to make a profit. They will certainly do so and it will be at the expense of the producer. Although the Minister criticised the amendment in the name of Deputy Dillon and myself because it was not extended to a further sub-section, I may say that there was no collaboration between Deputy Dillon and me in drafting the amendment. I felt that if our amendment was carried, it would bring us to where we wanted to get and the amendment of the further sub-section would be a matter for the Minister.

I maintain that no case has been made against the amendment. I maintain that the farmer's wife who has been thrifty and tidy and who has been selling a few lbs. of butter to assist her husband in providing the necessaries for the home ought not to be taxed to this extent. The Minister is rather short-sighted in his action. Take the case of the man whom the Minister loves most—the wheat grower and the beet grower, the man who tills. The wife of such a man in Roscommon or Galway assists him by selling from eight to ten pounds of butter per week. Compare the position of those people with that of people in Limerick or Tipperary, where they do not till and where their main source of income is dairying. The people in Roscommon and Galway to whom I refer earn their living by the sweat of their brow. They grow wheat and beet and engage generally in tillage. Why should the sum of 4d. per lb. be deducted from the price of the butter which they sell to a sister or a sister's husband in the next village in order to assist people who do not follow the same type of farming? I assert that the principle which we are endeavouring by this amendment to remove from the Bill is a bad one. I have not been convinced by the case made by the Minister. If a private vote of the Minister's own supporters inside or outside this House were taken, it would not show support for the proposal which he makes. I doubt that the Minister himself is convinced that the Bill is a good one. The farmer's wife who is supplying private customers ought not to be called upon to register and pay 5s. for the privilege. The farmers have enough to pay without calling on their wives to pay 5s. to the State for this purpose. That system has gone a bit too far and this House would be well advised to support this amendment and show the Minister and the Government that they cannot play fast and loose in a matter of this kind.

The real intention of this Bill is to get more money out of the dairying industry. That is obvious to anybody. As justification for the proposal to place a levy on farmers' butter, the Minister stated that farmers were leaving the creameries and going into the manufacture of butter themselves, thereby injuring the creameries in many districts. I come from a creamery constituency and I have not known that to happen. I do not speak from a purely constituency point of view at all, and we have to remember that there are districts in which there are no creameries. What will be the position of these districts? It is possible to strike a levy in the case of creameries because they are organised and have the matter somewhat equitably arranged. But as regards farmers' butter, Deputy Belton put up a very nice case which the Minister did not answer, in my opinion, clearly. He said that the butter merchant goes into a market and buys butter on the assumption that a levy is payable on all that butter. He brings that to a factory and probably blends it and exports it. How does this legislation get out of that? I am not clear at all with regard to the Minister's explanation of that point and I should like to hear a little more about it. A good deal of the Minister's statement was concerned with the price of butter in the world market—76/- to 78/- per cwt. I wonder why the Minister does not draw the same analogy with regard to the prices of other agricultural products in the world's markets? What about the price of cattle in the world markets?

Dr. Ryan

It is not the same question. If you were to continue that analogy, you would find that you would get less.

The Minister says we would get less? Does the Minister say that the price of butter would be increased from 6d. to 8½d. a lb?

Dr. Ryan

It is above the present world price.

We must always take into consideration the price on the British market when we are talking about things like that. What about the price for other agricultural products? Has the Minister no regard for the cost of production? Has he no regard for the prices of cattle? It has always been realised that the dairying industry was only a branch of the cattle industry and that the rearing of young stock was more remunerative than butter-making. When the Minister was in opposition, he had a great interest in the dairy farmers of this country and stated in this House that some Commission, which sat at some time, found that it cost 5d. to produce a gallon of milk. I think that he would stand over that statement to-day, but instead of the farmer getting 5d. a gallon for his milk to-day——

Dr. Ryan

I do not know what the Deputy is talking about now.

The Minister does not know what I am talking about?

Dr. Ryan

I fail to see what it has to do with this amendment.

It is possible that I may be wandering somewhat from the amendment, but the Minister himself and a good many other Deputies wandered far afield from the purport of this amendment. As I understand it, this amendment seeks to prevent a levy of 4d. a lb. being put on farmers' butter.

Will the Deputy tell us why?

I will explain the reason why. The reason is—to start with what the Minister said a while ago— that the effect of this Bill would be to increase farmers' butter from 6d. to 8½d. I hold that there is no justification for that.

Dr. Ryan

Is there any justification for going back to 6d.?

Even if we admit that, you are levying 4d.

Dr. Ryan

Yes.

And you will get 6d. without this Bill, but by paying 4d. in the lb. you will get 8d.

Dr. Ryan

8½d.

Well, 8½d. That is no argument at all, and the Minister ought to know it. However, take the case of non-creamery districts. In such districts, it certainly will have the effect of lowering the price, because, while there was only 2d. a lb. levy under a recent Bill which, I do not think was very rigidly enforced, it makes a very great difference now to levy 4d. a lb. Of course, the only object of this levy is to get over the British tariffs.

Dr. Ryan

It is not.

Well, it certainly would not need such a levy only for the British tariffs.

Dr. Ryan

The tariff has nothing to do with it.

Is that so? I wonder at the Minister making such a statement. Is not the price of butter around about 76/-?

Dr. Ryan

Yes.

And two-sevenths of that is tariff, which would bring it down to about 54/-?

Dr. Ryan

No; that is paid by Government subsidy and has nothing to do with this Bill at all.

So that it is all one? At any rate, it has the effect that it is depressed in the British market by the tariff and you want to get over that. Does not the farmer pay the levy? Of course he does. Although butter is quoted here at 1/3, 1/4 and 1/5, I know that I am only getting 10d. for the raw material. That is what concerns me, and people like me, as a producer of the raw material. As I said on another occasion, Deputy Smith and a number of other members of the Fianna Fáil Party have been talking about what we would get for our milk if we were in Northern Ireland. They say that we would be getting 2d. or 3d. a gallon. But what is the position now?

Dr. Ryan

That is all they were getting for two or three years.

But it is 5d. now.

Would Deputy Curran like to go up there?

Dr. Ryan

What Deputy Curran is talking about is outside the amendment.

I think that what I am saying is just as relevant to the amendment as anything the Minister has said. At any rate, I know something about the dairying industry. I know the position. I have been engaged at it all my life and I know the difficulties that have to be contended with. I know of a certain struggling creamery from which you took £7,000 odd, and you got that money out of the pool, and now you want to get more money into the pool. Is not that the purport of the whole Bill? I hold that it is unfair and unreasonable to ask farmers to pay 4d. a lb.—farmers who, in some cases, produce only in small quantities, and who are far away from creameries and who might be doing a little business one way or another. These are the people for whom I speak, although there are not many of them in my constituency. There are many of them, however, in other constituencies. I can quite see the point of view of the man with 200 cows about whom the Minister spoke, but I do not think that such a man exists. I can quite see that if such a man were to go away from the creamery, it might seriously injure the creamery. That is another matter, but I do not know of any such cases. I only know of the class of people for whom I am speaking, and I hold that this section, which seeks to register farmers and tariff them, is unjustifiable, and I believe that many of the Fianna Fáil members are not in agreement with it either.

Dr. Ryan

How does the Deputy know?

I know it well, and I know that this section, if it is passed, will hit some of their districts as much as it will hit any other districts. I believe that if it were only left to a free vote of the House the section would not go through at all, as Deputy Brennan said. Could not the Minister adopt some other means if he wants to do something for the dairying industry rather than by means of this levy? I do not consider that this levy is justifiable at all under the circumstances. There has been a lot of talk here about the price to the consumer. It is a fact, nevertheless, as I said here before, that the price of butter was rather high to the consumer and that the producer was not getting the benefit of it. That, certainly, is the case, and I hold that if legislation is needed in order to do something for the dairying industry, it ought to be done in some other way rather than by having such a big margin as the producer getting 10d. a lb. and the consumer having to pay 1/5. If legislation could remedy that, then I think it ought to be introduced.

Deputy Belton made a point which was not cleared up and I would be glad if the Minister would clear it up. The Deputy talked about a man going to the market and buying a quantity of butter. He bought it on the assumption that there was a levy on it and paid 8d. to 8½d. per lb. for it. He brought the butter home and exported 50 per cent. of it which was not liable to the levy at all. Would the Minister explain the position of that man? He has paid a levy on all the butter that he bought. I do not know what happens in a case like that, but I am inclined to think that it is the butter factor or the blender who gets away with it. I fear that this Bill, like some other Bills, will only lead to an evasion of the law. It is unfair to ask a farmer who sells 10 or 12 lbs. of butter to register, and to pay a levy of 3/4 a week. He will not do it if he can get out of it. I would like to see the Bill amended in so far as it asks farmers to pay 4d. per lb. of a levy. I think it is unjust, and I am sure that the Minister is not very ardent about it although he pretends to be.

I want to draw attention to a statement that was made by my friend Deputy Belton, or at least a suggestion he made, that the creameries were being put in a sort of privileged position: that they were being treated, so-to-speak, as the spoiled child of this House. The Deputy said that they got some exemption under the Milk Bill, and that now they are being put in a kind of privileged position under this Bill. As one who has been connected with creameries for a considerable time, I want to say that not only was that an unfair suggestion to make, but that it is not in accordance with the facts, because the creameries were subjected to special legislation long ago and, latterly, things have been made more stringent for them as they have been for others. I do not think it is fair to parade the creameries here and say that they have been put in a privileged position.

We have travelled over a considerable amount of ground on this Bill this evening. Last week the principle of it was accepted by the House, and we are now in Committee trying to amend it. We have spent a considerable time this evening on one amendment and do not seem to be making much progress. The last speech that we had and the criticisms offered seem to me to suggest that, instead of coming together and agreeing on something really useful, we are getting farther away from the point at issue. I would suggest, not only to those who have put forward the amendment but also to the Minister, that we should arrive at a compromise on this amendment. It is a thing that ought commend itself to those who, during their lives, have spent a good deal of their time attending fairs and markets. As I understand the amendment, it proposes to relieve all farmers' butter from the payment of the levy. Some of us spoke last week on the Second Reading of the Bill, and we had speeches to-day from Deputy Dillon and Deputy Brennan. They suggested that the small farmer's wife, selling her few lbs. of butter, is going to be very hard hit if she has to pay a levy on it. I am in agreement with them on that, and would suggest to the Minister that the game is not worth the candle: that in such cases the gain that would follow from the levy will not be worth the cost of collection.

Deputy Dillon, in proposing the amendment, did not dwell on the other end of the question—the larger producer—and I do not know whether he meant to do so or not. There is a difficulty there if we take the amendment as it stands. I can see a difficulty from the creamery standpoint, coming as I do from a county where we have creameries generally. When you take those parts of the country which are without creameries, where producers are pursuing the ordinary course of producing home-made butter, there is no doubt that if we leave the big people out entirely they would benefit by the levy on the creamery butter. They would have a better market for their butter, without paying anything for it, while the creamery people would have all the machinery and the payments and adjustments to make. If, then, we take into our consideration the case of some large suppliers to the creameries, they might become disgruntled if a situation of that sort were created. They might take it into their heads to get separators and, instead of continuing to send their milk to the creamery, engage in the production of butter. The creamery suppliers who did that would undoubtedly be getting an advantage over and above their neighbours who continued to send their milk to the creamery. There is that difficulty that I see about the larger producer.

I would suggest to the Minister that he should accept an enlargement of what he proposes later in the Bill. He proposes to exempt from any levy people who only sell 5 lbs. of butter in the week. The suggestion that I make in all seriousness to him is this: that he should raise the amount of butter that he would be prepared to give an exemption to. I think that would take the sting out of the point that Deputy Dillon and Deputy Brennan made about the hardship likely to be inflicted on the small producer. It has to be borne in mind that a great many of these small producers are only seasonal producers. Take the case of a person with, say, three cows. There would be a good portion of the year when such a person would have just a very small quantity of butter to sell—maybe none at all—but during a short period he might have something in excess of 5 lbs. to sell when his cows had a flow of milk. The compromise that I am suggesting to the Minister is this: that he should raise the exemption to double or treble what he proposes in his own amendment. I think that would meet the point that was made by Deputy Dillon and Deputy Brennan. If that compromise were agreed on we might make some real progress with the Bill, but if we are to go on as we have been, with neither side prepared to give way. then the Bill will remain as it is and be the cause, I fear, of a lot of irritation. The collection of the levy from these small people will not, I suggest, be worth the trouble. It will involve the employment of a special staff of officers, and the sum realised will not, I venture to say, meet the cost of collection. I hope the Minister will accept my suggestion.

I want to submit to the Minister that there is neither head nor tail to the argument he has put up, because he argued, at an early stage of this amendment, that it was a gross injustice that farmers producing home-made butter should be getting 1/2 a lb. for their butter at the cost of their creamery neighbours. That was the preliminary argument. He then waxed eloquent on other aspects of the question and arrived at the point of saying: "I admit that the farmers are at present getting 6d. a lb. and by the operation of this Bill, I hope they will get 7d. to 8½d." We began by denouncing the farmers for getting 1/3 at the expense of their creamery neighbours and we wound up by telling the same farmers that the benefit we propose to confer on them by this Bill in its original form was to increase the price from 6d. to 8½d. Which is the truth? Is this a Bill to do substantial justice as between one class of farmer and another or to get 2½d. a lb. more for farmers' butter than they ever got before? I beg leave to submit that it is, in fact, a Bill designed for the purpose of collaring 4d. a lb. from the farmers' butter. The object of my amendment is to scotch that attempt. I think it is time the Minister told us what it is he really has in mind and explain the discrepancy between the beginning of his speech and its conclusion.

Dr. Ryan

Five o'clock to eight o'clock is three hours. Is it not absolutely hopeless to try to get a man with a mind like Deputy Dillon's to understand anything? I do not mind Deputy Curran.

I could not understand anything, anyway. Is that it?

Dr. Ryan

That is right. I never knew the Deputy to understand anything. Deputy Dillon does sometimes understand, especially when it is to his advantage. At the end of a very long discussion, during which Deputy Belton, Deputy Brennan and others tried to explain the Bill, Deputy Dillon gets up and is as ignorant as when he started after our three hours' discussion. Some farmers will get 1s. 2d. for their butter, and have been getting 1s. 2d.—some have only been getting 6d.—and it is proposed to try to continue that price of 1s. 2d. or 1s. 3d. and to take 4d. off, one of the results of which would be to raise the 6d. man to 8½d. I spoke also of these men getting 1s. 2d. going down through stress of competition as between them to keep away from the 6d. and in order to try to get the custom of the consumer going from 1s. 2d. to 1s. and to 10d. and perhaps 8d. That brings me to a point raised by Deputy O'Sullivan. He says — I suppose, theoretically, quite rightly—that there is no reason why this tax should be raised from the butter consumer any more than from anybody else. But if we can get this money from the butter consumer and if it is just, there is an argument for taking it from that source. I was trying to argue here that competition between butter producers to avoid the fresh butter market, in which they would have to take 6d., drove them to accept 8d. or 9d. from the consumer. I hold that, under this Bill, if we put the levy on, they will still get 8d. or 9d., in addition to the levy, and we shall be able to get the levy in that way.

That is my contention and I ask the Opposition to be content to wait and see whether I am right or not in six or eight weeks' time when the Bill is operating. I am quite confident that that is going to be the operation of the Bill. In other words, the consumer of farmers' butter will have to pay a little nearer to the price of creamery butter during the summer months, when there is a big surplus, than he has been paying for the last couple of years. I think it is quite a fair tax because the consumer is getting very good farmers' butter—butter as good as creamery butter—and getting it at a couple of pence less. Also, I think there is something to be said for making this scheme self-supporting, because I had hoped, when I brought in the first Bill in 1932, that at the end of two years, the whole scheme would be handed over to the producers to operate. I am more hopeful now because there is a Committee which appears to be operating rather successfully on the marketing side, and if they continue to be successful on that side, there is no reason why they should not take over the whole operation of the scheme as in the case of the Bacon Board.

The old argument, of course, is raised that the bounty may not reach the producer. That is quite true, but why the bounty any more than any other part of the price? When people argued, before the quota on cattle, that the bounty was not going to the producer, I always asked "Why that particular 30/-; why not some other part of the price?" If the exporters of butter are able to give, say, 8½d., 2½d. of which is bounty, they are not giving it except through competition. Competition makes them do it. If we take off the 2½d. bounty, why should they give 6d. if they are not compelled to do it by competition? I can never see the force of the argument that the bounty will not go to the producer. If there is competition, it will go between the people who are exporting and if there is not competition, I suppose it will not. That is all there is to it.

Deputy Belton made the suggestion that we should have this levy less than the levy on creamery butter because it should be on a percentage basis. In that case, I think it could be argued that the bounty should be on a percentage basis. That would mean that the factory butter, which is exported, would come down a ½d. a lb. in value and, therefore, the producer who sells butter to the factory would also get ½d. a lb. less, and I maintain that the general price level would go down. I might say that Deputy Belton in making that case prophesied that the thing would work out unfairly for the producer of farmers' butter as compared with the producer of creamery butter. If that is the case, there is nothing to prevent the Minister from making an order under this Bill reducing the levy on farmers' butter. Deputy Brennan said that we were going to tax the farmers in order to benefit the creameries. That is absolutely wrong. There is no idea of doing that. The present levy of 39/- and the present bounty of 25/- are based on an estimate of the production and export of creamery butter for the year. They will balance out and creamery butter is self-supporting on that basis. The same calculation is made in respect to farmers' butter, but if it happens that we are getting in more, that is, that there is a greater consumption of farmers' butter than was calculated, the levy may be reduced, because, otherwise, there would be much more than would be sufficient to pay the bounty required. Alternatively, the bounty could be increased. We have to wait for four or six weeks' experience to ascertain the amount of farmers' butter consumed as we have not got very good figures in that respect. The levies and bounties can be varied as between farmers' and creamery butter, if our experience of the working of the Act will permit it. These particular figures are only put into the Bill until such time as they are changed by Order.

I think it was Deputy Belton who said that he had very real fears about what was going to be paid by the butter factories under this measure. I think I mentioned already that this time last year the factories were paying 6d. to the producers; now they are paying 8½d. Surely there is no justification for fears when we see that. Having seen this Bill in print, and assuming it would go through the Dáil and Seanad, they have acted as if the Bill were law and they are paying 2½d. more than last year, although the price on the British market for their exported butter will not vary more than 2/- at the outside compared with last year.

Does the Minister find himself in a position to tell the House what proportion of farm butter is exported, and what proportion is consumed at home?

Dr. Ryan

The estimate made some years ago was that 20 per cent of the farmers' butter sold was consumed at home. I think probably that figure was too low. It does not include the farmers' butter consumed on the farm. The estimate was 20 per cent. consumed at home and 80 per cent exported. I think the figures very low, and we will have to get some experience before we know the actual position. Deputy Curran made a very unfair accusation against the operation of the last Act when he said that we took £7,000 from his creamery and gave them no advantage by way of bounties. I think what Deputy Curran means is that they sold their butter at home and drew no bounty.

We paid the levy.

Dr. Ryan

How would his creamery be able to sell all its butter at home if all the other creameries did the same? If we did not build up a pool in order to assist certain creameries that were in competition with Deputy Curran's creamery to export their butter, the price of butter on the home market would not be quite so good. Naturally, Deputy Curran's creamery had to contribute to that pool. The world price at the time was 76/-, and his creamery got 100/-, the advantage being 24/- a cwt. The statement made by the Deputy shows the lengths to which some Deputies are prepared to go in order to misrepresent things.

Did I not make a fair statement?

Dr. Ryan

It was an absolutely unfair statement. It was quite true that the Deputy's creamery paid £7,000 and got no bounty back, but a true statement is very often unfair when it is not explained, as the Deputy knows. He knew he was making an unfair statement.

I did not.

Dr. Ryan

There was a suggestion that we might get over the difficulty by raising the exemption limit. It was suggested that the wife of a small farmer, for whom there is so much pity expressed by Deputies, might, if she was giving her butter direct to a consumer, be exempt. That is Deputy Haslett's point. Deputies on the other side have denied that there are farmers with 50, 70 and even 100 cows involved. They said that there are no such men.

The Minister hardly knows of them either.

Dr. Ryan

I agree with Deputy Haslett that other Deputies should really have approached the question on the lines that there should be a larger exemption limit. In the Bill it is set out as 5 lbs. I do not know who is going to define the term "small farmer," or what the level will be.

I will do that for you.

The Minister can vary the order and I think that is giving too much power to the Minister.

Dr. Ryan

Not at all; when it is managed judiciously it is all right. The Minister may vary by order, but he cannot exceed the limit of 5 lbs. Deputy Haslett's suggestion is that the 5 lbs. should be raised to a higher figure. I would be much more inclined to agree to an amendment on those lines. I do not think you could put it very much higher than 5 lbs., but I would be inclined to consider an amendment to raise that limit somewhat.

To how much?

Dr. Ryan

We would have to consider such matters before expressing an opinion. If Deputy Haslett puts down an amendment for the Report Stage we will consider it. If the Ceann Comhairle allows me, I will do it.

The Minister in his statement on the Second Reading suggested that it might be raised. He was favourably disposed in that direction.

Dr. Ryan

I think it would have been much better if Deputies had approached the question in that way.

Why did not the Minister put it into the Bill if he thought it right?

I do not know if the Minister has visualised the dilemma if six country-women come in with six rolls of butter to any registered butter dealer. The butter dealer is entitled to levy any woman whose butter he intends to sell in Saorstát Eireann, but he is not entitled to levy any women for butter which he intends to export. How is he going to differentiate between individual women?

Dr. Ryan

He does not; he gives whatever is the market value. Creameries sometimes sell butter at home and get the home price; others export it and get the bounty. It is the same price whichever way they sell it. There is no doubt that in practice there will be a market price for butter.

So that, in fact, the woman who is selling her butter and eventually exporting it pays the levy just the same as the person who sells the butter to a Saorstát consumer?

Dr. Ryan

I do not think I said that. I gave an example of a person selling through a factory. The factory sends an agent to buy. The factory manager knows that under present circumstances he will get 93/- on the export market. He knows, therefore, that his butter is worth 93/- for export and he sends the agent out on that assumption to buy. He will not sell in the home market unless he gets 93/-, plus 39/-. Therefore, his price on the home market is 132/- He does not have to forecast or estimate how much he will export or sell at home. He will sell at home whatever he can sell at that price and export the rest.

But the dealer must pay the levy on all butter that passes through his hands?

Dr. Ryan

Yes.

He has to pay the levy on the butter he passes on to the factory and on what he sells to the consumer, so that the dealer will have to levy all customers.

Dr. Ryan

If I were a dealer I would say: "If I send the butter to the factory I will get 8½d., and therefore I can at least pay 8d. for the butter I buy." I think that is a sufficient profit. If I have to sell that to a home consumer I will charge him 8d. plus the levy, and that will be 1/0½.

Perhaps the Minister might tell us roughly the variations in price in different parts of the country? What is the difference in price at present between farmers' butter and creamery butter? I admit it varies in different places.

Dr. Ryan

The retail price?

Dr. Ryan

I really could not say. It varies. I saw a table to-day of the price for the last year and it varied down to 8d. and up to 1/7.

Is the suggestion that the Minister will level up by the bounty so that the exporter will get 93/-?

Dr. Ryan

That is practically the position; you may take that as true.

I take it that the Minister's contention is that this will make no difference as regards the retail price. I hold that it would make a considerable difference. It will make a difference at least to the value of the levy. I am speaking now of the consumer. It would make a difference to the consumer of the amount of the levy. That will be the result of this Bill.

Dr. Ryan

Does the Deputy mean between the consumer and the producer?

By the time it gets to the consumer, he will practically have to pay the amount of the levy. I am not now speaking of the machinery by which it gets to the consumer. The consumer will practically have to pay.

Dr. Ryan

In most cases.

In practice the cost will be divided between the producer and consumer.

Dr. Ryan

The trader will get a bit.

Yes, the trader will get a bit. But there will be a direct loss to the producer, and a loss to the consumer. Supposing that the additional loss goes on to the consumer and that he has to pay the levy he will have to pay more than fourpence per lb. very often, because this will put additional expenses on the butter industry, and there will be an additional profit on the fourpence. But leaving that aside, the Bill will cause, in comparison with present conditions, a very considerable advance on farmers' butter to the consumer.

Dr. Ryan

That is generally true.

And that would prejudice farmers' butter with the present trend towards creamery butter. The nearer you bring the prices the greater the danger is of the market for the farmers' butter being lost entirely.

Dr. Ryan

No. I was asked by Deputy Belton if there was an increase in the consumption of creamery butter in the last year, and I find that the consumption was lower last year than the year before.

If the Minister will follow me, that is precisely what I expected would occur. Creamery butter has gone up in price because of the operation of the previous Act. You are now putting up the price of farmers' butter under this Bill, and as a result when this Bill becomes an Act, there will be a less amount of farmers' butter consumed. This Bill is putting it at a disadvantage of 4d. per lb. in competition with the creamery butter, so that you will have the consumer going back to creamery butter.

Dr. Ryan

It was not because of the increased price that there was less creamery butter used by the consumer.

Is the Minister not aware that in very many cases the farmers who are themselves sending their milk to the creamery turned round and, instead of buying creamery butter as one would expect, bought farmers' butter?

Dr. Ryan

That is true; there is an increase in the consumption of farmers' butter.

A good deal will depend in the matter of price and in the matter of bounty on the ratio between the amount of butter sold at home and the amount of butter exported. Suppose a levy of 4d. is put on, the amount that will come back to the farmers will depend on what the ratio exported bears to what is consumed at home.

Dr. Ryan

Yes.

Has the Minister any figures as to that?

Dr. Ryan

It is expected to be half and half.

But at present there are no figures?

Dr. Ryan

No.

Then the Minister is acting on pure speculation at present. An estimate referred to by the Minister gave only 20 per cent. as exported.

Dr. Ryan

The figures would be at least forty-six.

I suggested something like that. I think at an earlier stage of the Bill the Minister in defence of the measure put up the point that the farmer would get the advantage of the bounty. It is impossible for him to know how much of the bounty the farmer will get. The amount he will get will depend on the relative amount of farmers' butter consumed at home and the amount exported. It is quite clear that he cannot get 4d. His advocates may not be in a position to put up what percentage of the bounty he may expect because it will depend on the relative proportion of the amount exported and the amount consumed at home. That figure is quite beyond the farmers' possibility of ascertaining.

Might I ask the Minister what is the necessity for having a register at all in connection with butter manufactured by the farmers in their own homes? Take the case of the County Louth. The farmer makes his butter there and sells it in the market. Under this Bill he may have to pay 4d. per lb. levy and there is no guarantee that the farmer will get a better price as a result of the operations of this legislation than he previously got. The farmer is going to be compelled to pay 4d. a lb. The Minister in the course of his remarks laid stress on the fact that it was not fair to the creameries that the farmers should be allowed to do as they liked with the butter they produced, seeing that the creameries had to pay a certain levy. The Minister instanced the fact that many of the farmers living in the vicinity in which creameries had been established left the creameries and started the business of making butter themselves. Since I entered this House eight years ago, that is the old story we have heard from the creameries and from the creamery managers in particular. There is, I think, a Mr. Semple, who is Secretary of the Creamery Managers' Association, and some years ago his policy was "Hands off the creameries." He resented at that time any interference by the Government with the creameries. That was his policy during the first few years. But as time went on and all these levies were imposed, it would appear as if he thinks he has his ends accomplished. Latterly we have not heard of the Secretary of the Creamery Managers' Association, good, bad or indifferent. That is because the Minister and the members of the Executive Council have more or less reacted to the suggestions made by these people, whose natural interest lies in having the price of butter raised. This policy of Governmental interference with the every-day life of the people is, in my opinion, bad. The Government is interfering with this old-established industry of butter-making, and that interference will, in my opinion, in time prove disastrous. That interference is in striking contrast, if I may make the remark in passing, with the action of the Government in pouring out the sum of £4,000 or £5,000 for the establishment of a Folklore Commission here in order to continue the traditions of old songs and old stories. That is the object of the Folklore Commission—the keeping alive of old songs, old stories and old customs. A certain section of this Bill is going to do away with a very old industry, namely, that of butter-making at home. That the farmers of County Louth should be asked to pay 4d. a lb. in order that the creameries in the south of Ireland would make more money—because that is really what it amounts to—is a policy to which I will not subscribe. I will go further and say, notwithstanding what may be said in regard to the creamery industry, that if the creameries cannot carry on under present conditions, having a plentiful supply of raw material in the form of grass, then the sooner a few sticks of gelignite are used to blow up the creameries the better for this country. We may throw up the sponge and say we cannot succeed in anything if we cannot succeed in carrying on the creamery industry, when, as I say, we have our own natural raw material, and the sooner we do away with all the creameries the better.

This policy of putting everything on to the consumer, in my opinion, will defeat itself. You have the same position practically in America at present. Although President Roosevelt ushered in his régime with a great flourish of trumpets, there are signs at present that things are not going well in that country, and I am afraid we are going to have the same state of affairs here. The Minister stated that it is only reasonable to expect that the farmer should get a fair price for his butter. He failed, however, to convince me that as a result of the passing of this Bill the farmer will get any monetary advantage, or that he has got any monetary advantage from previous Acts, while, at the same time, the consumer is asked to pay more. I would like to see the farmer getting a fair return for his labour—everyone is entitled to that—but I do not see the fun of increasing the price of such an important commodity as butter by 4d. or 5d. a lb. in order to confer a certain advantage on the creameries in the south of Ireland if, as a result of that increase, you are going to inflict too many hardships on the poor.

I am not convinced that when this Bill is in operation there will be any increased advantage accruing to the farmers of the south of Ireland who supply milk to creameries. The whole thing is theoretical and problematical. We have heard the same old story before. There is a good deal of putting down figures on the blackboard about this Bill. You can prove anything by figures. There is a great difference between theory and actual experience. No Fianna Fáil Deputy, not even the Minister, can prove to me that as a result of this legislation, by which the price of butter to the consumer is increased, there will be any corresponding advantage commensurate with the great increase in the cost of living to the farmer.

It is a well-known fact that most of the small farmers in the county I represent manufacture their own butter and bring it to the local market. I might say in passing that if the Minister paid a little more attention to improving the quality of the butter, so that there would be no such thing as bad butter in this country, he would possibly be doing much better for the farmers in general. As I said, most of the small farmers in Co. Louth make their own butter, and they have carried on that business for years. They are ready and willing to continue doing that, and also to abide by the prices prevailing in the local markets. Sometimes the price goes up and sometimes it goes down. But, as a result of this Bill, I fear that the price they will receive in future will be much less, for this reason: Assuming that the price of butter in Dundalk market will be 1/- a lb., if they have to pay a levy of 4d. the net price they will receive will be 8d., and that will be a loss rather than a gain.

In addition, if this Bill passes in its present form, it will mean that very small farmers will have to pay an increased price for the butter which they cannot provide for themselves. In parts of Co. Louth there are many small farmers who have not sufficient cows to supply their families with butter. That applies particularly to a large extent to the north end of the county. Take the Cooley area, where the unfortunate farmers have thousands of tons of potatoes rotting behind the ditches for which they cannot receive even 10/- a ton at present. Owing to the area being a scheduled one, they can only export potatoes to the British market and would be fined heavily if they were caught taking a cwt. of potatoes into the Dundalk market. Would it not be a great injustice to ask these people, who have to live under such conditions, to pay 4d. a lb. more for their butter? On behalf of these people I thoroughly object to a section which would impose such hardship on our people.

We have been advised to look at this thing nationally. There is no such thing as looking at anything in this country nationally at present. So far as I can see, selfishness rules supreme, and it is a matter of everyone for himself. Even in the case of work, you cannot go a mile outside your own area without being called a stranger. And then we are told to look at this thing nationally! It is up to every man to safeguard the interests of the people he represents. I for one am utterly opposed to making these people register and to imposing upon them undue hardships and, incidentally, extra expense in complying with all these rules and regulations. The fact of the matter is that I can foresee in a very short time that it will be impossible almost to breathe unless we first get a certificate from some official in some of the Departments. It seems to me that the country is going to have nothing but officials—there will be no workers or farmers. Like the man who resented being called a soldier and who said they were all officers—we will have all officers and no soldiers; all officials and no workers. For that reason, I hold that the amendment proposed by Deputy Dillon ought to be accepted by the Minister.

One could speak on this at great length, but there is no use delaying the House any further, because we have been several hours discussing this particular amendment, and I agree with Deputy Belton that after all the explanations the thing appears to be as clear as mud. Possibly many Deputies pretend to understand a question which, deep down in their hearts, they know they do not understand. Really I could not understand the Minister's explanation, especially in regard to butter that will be bought for factory purposes, and in the natural course exported to Great Britain, on which no levy is payable. A man who goes to the market can buy butter on the assumption that he has to pay a levy of 4d. per lb. when, in reality, he will pay nothing. Possibly time will tell better than anything else whether this Bill is going to do any good for the creamery industry. My firm conviction is that it will not. If I were a farmer in the south of Ireland, and had a choice between accepting Bills of this nature passed in my interest, or accepting a free and open market I would certainly accept a free and open market, and I would be a richer man in the end. No one knows better than Deputy Corry that the majority of the farmers in the south of Ireland would be richer, even if they only got 8d. per lb. for butter, if they had a free market. I am prepared to discuss that matter with Deputy Corry outside, although I am not a farmer.

It is easy to know that.

I happened to study the question, as I know something of that industry, and from the experience of the past two or three years, I say that farmers in the south of Ireland, especially farmers who supply creameries with milk, in whose interest this Bill was introduced, would be far better off and would have more money at the end of the year if they had a free market. You are building on a rotten foundation and until you have the courage—if there is such a thing as courage left amongst the members of the Fianna Fáil Party and their Executive—to face facts that are staring everybody in the face, and if you want to confer any real lasting benefit on the unfortunate farmers, you must get back the British market as quickly as possible, and not bother about this class of Bills. There is nothing in them. Experience of the operation of the previous Act has shown that farmers who supply milk to creameries have not benefited to the extent that the farmers expected. The whole thing is artificial. There is too much artificiality in this country, and the sooner we face facts the better it will be for all concerned. While I am 100 per cent. in favour of giving farmers a fair return for their labour, as they work hard, I would oppose any Bill of this nature, because this is really a pretence at conferring benefits that time will prove will not be benefits but disadvantages. Therefore, I agree with the amendment, in order that the people will be allowed to carry on their industry in their own Irish way. That is what it amounts to. I do not know whether those who boast of having a superabundance of nationality like to look at that aspect of the question. I say that this Bill is really going to do away with an old Irish industry and I will not subscribe to such a policy..

Question put: "That the paragraph proposed to be deleted, stand."
The Committee divided: Tá, 52; Nil, 40.

  • Aiken, Frank.
  • Bartley, Gerald.
  • Beegan, Patrick.
  • Boland, Gerald.
  • Boland, Patrick.
  • Brady, Brian.
  • Breathnach, Cormac.
  • Breen, Daniel.
  • Cleary, Mícheál.
  • Concannon, Helena.
  • Goulding, John.
  • Hales, Thomas.
  • Harris, Thomas.
  • Hogan, Patrick (Clare).
  • Houlihan, Patrick.
  • Kehoe, Patrick.
  • Kelly, James Patrick.
  • Kelly, Thomas.
  • Kilroy, Michael.
  • Kissane, Eamonn.
  • Lemass, Seán F.
  • Little, Patrick John.
  • MacEntee, Seán.
  • Maguire, Ben.
  • Maguire, Conor Alexander.
  • Moane, Edward.
  • Corkery, Daniel.
  • Corry, Martin John.
  • Crowley, Fred. Hugh.
  • Crowley, Timothy.
  • Daly, Denis.
  • Derrig, Thomas.
  • De Valera, Eamon.
  • Flynn, Stephen.
  • Fogarty, Andrew.
  • Gibbons, Seán.
  • Moore, Séamus.
  • Murphy, Patrick Stephen.
  • Norton, William.
  • O Briain, Donnchadh.
  • O'Grady, Seán.
  • O'Reilly, Matthew.
  • Pearse, Margaret Mary.
  • Rice, Edward.
  • Ryan, James.
  • Ryan, Martin.
  • Ryan, Robert.
  • Sheridan, Michael.
  • Smith, Patrick.
  • Traynor, Oscar.
  • Victory, James.
  • Ward, Francis C.

Níl

  • Beckett, James Walter.
  • Belton, Patrick.
  • Bennett, George Cecil.
  • Bourke, Séamus.
  • Brennan, Michael.
  • Broderick, William Joseph.
  • Burke, James Michael.
  • Coburn, James.
  • Corish, Richard.
  • Costello, John Aloysius.
  • Curran, Richard.
  • Desmond, William.
  • Dillon, James M.
  • Dolan, James Nicholas.
  • Doyle, Peadar S.
  • Finlay, John.
  • Fitzgerald, Desmond.
  • Fitzgerald-Kenney, James.
  • Holohan, Richard.
  • Keating, John.
  • Lynch, Finian.
  • MacDermot, Frank.
  • McFadden, Michael Og.
  • McGuire, James Ivan.
  • McMenamin, Daniel.
  • Morrisroe, James.
  • Mulcahy, Richard.
  • Murphy, James Edward.
  • Nally, Martin.
  • O'Donovan, Timothy Joseph.
  • O'Higgins, Thomas Francis.
  • O'Leary, Daniel.
  • O'Mahony, The.
  • O'Neill, Eamonn.
  • O'Sullivan, John Marcus.
  • Reidy, James.
  • Rice, Vincent.
  • Roddy, Martin.
  • Rogers, Patrick James.
  • Wall, Nicholas.
Tellers: Tá, Deputies Little and Smith; Níl, Deputies Doyle and Bennett.
Question declared carried.
Amendment No. 2 not moved.
Question put: "That Section 6 stand part of the Bill."
The Committee divided: Tá, 52; Níl, 40.

  • Aiken, Frank.
  • Bartley, Gerald.
  • Beegan, Patrick.
  • Boland, Gerald.
  • Boland, Patrick.
  • Brady, Brian.
  • Breathnach, Cormac.
  • Breen, Daniel.
  • Cleary, Mícheál.
  • Concannon, Helena.
  • Corkery, Daniel.
  • Corry, Martin John.
  • Crowley, Fred. Hugh.
  • Crowley, Timothy.
  • Daly, Denis.
  • Derrig, Thomas.
  • De Valera, Eamon.
  • Flynn, Stephen.
  • Fogarty, Andrew.
  • Gibbons, Seán.
  • Goulding, John.
  • Hales, Thomas.
  • Harris, Thomas.
  • Ryan, Robert.
  • Sheridan, Michael.
  • Smith, Patrick.
  • Hogan, Patrick (Clare).
  • Houlihan, Patrick.
  • Kehoe, Patrick.
  • Kelly, James Patrick.
  • Kelly, Thomas.
  • Kilroy, Michael.
  • Kissane, Eamonn.
  • Lemass, Seán F.
  • Little, Patrick John.
  • MacEntee, Seán.
  • Maguire, Ben.
  • Maguire, Conor Alexander.
  • Moane, Edward.
  • Moore, Séamus.
  • Murphy, Patrick Stephen.
  • Norton, William.
  • O Briain, Donnchadh.
  • O'Grady, Seán.
  • O'Reilly, Matthew.
  • Pearse, Margaret Mary.
  • Rice, Edward.
  • Ryan, James.
  • Ryan, Martin.
  • Traynor, Oscar.
  • Victory, James.
  • Ward, Francis C.

Níl

  • Beckett, James Walter.
  • Belton, Patrick.
  • Bennett, George Cecil.
  • Bourke, Séamus.
  • Brennan, Michael.
  • Broderick, William Joseph.
  • Burke, James Michael.
  • Coburn, James.
  • Corish, Richard.
  • Costello, John Aloysius.
  • Curran, Richard.
  • Desmond, William.
  • Dillon, James M.
  • Dolan, James Nicholas.
  • Doyle, Peadar S.
  • Finlay, John.
  • Fitzgerald, Desmond.
  • Fitzgerald-Kenney, James.
  • Holohan, Richard.
  • Keating, John.
  • Lynch, Finian.
  • MacDermot, Frank.
  • McFadden, Michael Og.
  • McGuire, James Ivan.
  • McMenamin, Daniel.
  • Morrisroe, James.
  • Mulcahy, Richard.
  • Murphy, James Edward.
  • Nally, Martin.
  • O'Donovan, Timothy Joseph.
  • O'Higgins, Thomas Francis.
  • O'Leary, Daniel.
  • O'Mahony, The.
  • O'Neill, Eamonn.
  • O'Sullivan, John Marcus.
  • Reidy, James.
  • Rice, Vincent.
  • Roddy, Martin.
  • Rogers, Patrick James.
  • Wall, Nicholas.
Tellers:—Tá: Deputies Little and Smith; Níl: Deputies Doyle and Bennett.
Question declared carried.
Amendments Nos. 3, 4 and 5 not moved.
Sections 7 and 8 agreed to.
Amendments Nos. 6 and 7 not moved
Sections 9 and 10 agreed to.
Amendment No. 8 not moved.
Sections 11 to 14, inclusive, agreed to.
SECTION 15.
Question proposed: "That Section 15 stand part of the Bill."

Under sub-section (2) of this section, the premises of a farmer producing and selling butter and registered as such will be open to inspection. For what purpose are these premises to be open to inspection? Is it for the purpose of seeing what quantities of butter are being produced?

Dr. Ryan

As a check on returns.

Will the premises of our friend, the butter blender, also be subject to inspection?

Dr. Ryan

Yes.

Would that inspection extend to his purchases and how he disposed of the butter?

Dr. Ryan

Yes.

Is he bound to keep books to show the amount of his purchases, the price at which he purchased and where he sold?

Dr. Ryan

He is.

May we take it that this inspection will consist merely of an examination of records and that there is no intention to exercise powers of inspection over the butter-making arrangements—the storage of the milk and so forth? The inspection will have nothing to do with the actual manufacture of the butter?

Dr. Ryan

No.

I wonder if that could be made more clear. This sub-section, in itself, has excited a certain amount of opposition in the country. As the Minister knows, the kitchen is, in many cases, the dairy, and people do not want their kitchens inspected, especially when no notice is to be given. They do not want a Government inspector to arrive unexpectedly at their place and inspect their kitchens. The Minister will, I think, find that the interpretation of this provision in the country is largely that Departmental inspectors will have power to go in and inspect all the butter-making arrangements.

Dr. Ryan

According to the sub-section, the inspector may inspect and take extracts from any records found on the premises relative to dealings in butter.

Does not sub-section (2) mean that an inspector may invade the privacy of every home in the country?

Dr. Ryan

If he suspects that butter is being made.

If he is going along a certain road, he may go into every farmer's house on the plea that he suspects that butter is being manufactured there.

Dr. Ryan

The inspectors under every Act that has been passed have the same power if they have suspicions.

Do I understand that Deputy Moore objects to an inspector of the Local Government Department going in and inspecting places where milk is produced for the purpose of manufacturing butter?

Dr. Ryan

The inspector could not do that under this Bill.

As I understand, the intention is to give power to find out how many lbs. of butter were manufactured at a certain time.

Dr. Ryan

Yes.

Is that clear? I had the same difficulty that Deputy Moore raises. The inspector is given that power, but has he any other power?

Dr. Ryan

Perhaps the Deputy will look at the definition of "inspector."

I should like to know what power this inspector has, after he enters a farmer's home, with regard to demanding the farmer's books. What are the inspector's powers once he gets into the home of a farmer in the country?

Dr. Ryan

First of all, if the Deputy will look at the definition of an inspector, he will find that it means a person authorised in writing by the Minister to exercise the powers conferred on an inspector by this Act.

Agreed, but that is very vague.

Dr. Ryan

Well, then, it is further defined in Section 45.

Section 45 has to do with the records to be kept by manufacturers, but I am not talking about manufacturers. I am talking about people suspected of making butter and I hold that under this particular section the inspector has a perfect right to go into your or my house and say: "I suspect that butter is being made here." What has the farmer or farmer's wife to do in that case?

Dr. Ryan

I think that perhaps the Deputy is over solicitous in this matter. For instance, under the Cereals Act, an inspector can go in and ask for similar particulars. Under the Slaughter of Cattle and Sheep Act an inspector can go in and demand particulars, and even under the Tobacco Act an inspector can go in and say: "I suspect that you are acting in such and such a way," but the fact is that they have not done it.

The Minister must know that that is a very different case.

Dr. Ryan

Nevertheless, the fact is that they have not done it.

But the Minister must remember that the people who have been engaged in these industries are very limited. In this case, however, an inspector, who passes by a farmer's house and sees a number of cows in the farmer's fields, has reason to suspect that that farmer is making and selling butter. What would the farmer do in that case, to keep within the law?

Dr. Ryan

I presume that he would have to satisfy the inspector that he was not breaking the law.

Take the case of maize-meal. I understand that the amount of pure maize-meal that can be sold is limited and that, therefore, if a person had more than was allowed of maize-meal on his premises he would possibly be guilty of an offence. There is no limit, however, in this Bill to the amount of butter that a person may have on his premises. The only offence is the selling of more than 5 lbs. a week and only after that amount has been sold is an offence committed. For instance, if that section is in operation and you come into my premises and find a half a ton of butter, even though I am not registered, have I committed an offence?

Dr. Ryan

No.

Well, then, what business has an inspector to come in? I must commit the offence of selling to some other individual, who is not registered, more than 5 lbs. a week. I do not see why my premises should be subject to any inspection at all; that is, when I am not registered. I fail to see the object of this. It must be remembered that butter is a far more domestic product than any other agricultural product, and that it is in closer touch with the privacy of the household and the home than any other agricultural product, and I hold that inspection in that case means an invasion of the privacy of the houses of farmers, and in the case of small farmers it means the inspection of every room and apartment in their houses. I think that it is going a bit too far to invade the privacy of the home in that way when, on the Minister's own admission, there is no offence committed, even if the inspector found the whole house full of butter, unless it was sold to another individual.

Dr. Ryan

How will you get evidence against that other individual?

If you cannot get the other individual you cannot have a case.

Dr. Ryan

Where will you get him? Will you get him on the road?

I am not trying to catch the Minister out. Let us suppose that I am the culprit and that the Minister or his inspector is following me. How am I to be caught through the inspector coming into my house? The fact that I have 5 lbs. or even 5 tons, of butter in my house at any one time is not evidence against me. What therefore, is the object of coming into my house to inspect it?

What information would the inspection give to the inspector, for the purposes of prosecution, that he could not get through a demand for a return of the accounts?

Dr. Ryan

If the inspector wants a return of the accounts, he must come and ask for it.

No—only by serving notice.

Dr. Ryan

Deputy Belton asked why it was necessary for an inspector to come in and inspect his house, and said that the fact that he might have 5 tons of butter in the house would constitute no offence. That is quite true. Neither is it an offence to have a large amount of money in your house, but if a bank had been robbed in the neighbourhood, the fact that you had so much money in your house at a particular time might help to establish the case, if you could not account for it. Similarly, the fact that you had 5 tons of butter in your house might be an indication that something was going on which was not right. If we were to follow out the Deputy's arguments, it would mean having two or three inspectors.

Has the inspector a right to get an answer to his question?

Dr. Ryan

He cannot force an answer, but there is no doubt that if he were bringing a case in court, the fact that his questions were not answered would have a certain effect.

What exactly does the Minister want to gain by this section? As a matter of fact, sub-section (2) does not appear to give the inspector power to look for butter, but for records, and he is entitled to look for records. Does the Minister believe that records are kept in the ordinary farmers' houses?

Dr. Ryan

This applies to manufacturers and everybody concerned with the selling of butter.

But if a person were making butter and had a certain amount of it on hands, that person is entitled to have it in the house and to sell it to a registered butter merchant?

Dr. Ryan

Yes.

Well, I do not see what the Minister is going to gain by this. If he thinks that he can keep inspectors at the back door and the front door of the house, I am afraid that he is up against it. I hold that this inspection does not get him anywhere. I believe that it only means giving an inspector the power to invade the sanctity of the home and, having gained access to the home, he can make use of anything he sees there.

I could understand this if there were a limit on the amount of butter kept in the house.

Dr. Ryan

Suppose that the inspector found no butter there?

Even with the best information, an inspector may be deceived. I would have no objection to it on that score, but supposing the inspector did make a catch, he cannot make use of it, because, no matter what he gets there, he has no case for prosecution. I take it that the object of the inspector is to provide himself with a case for prosecution. What would the Minister expect would make a case for prosecution in such circumstances?

Dr. Ryan

It is quite possible that the inspector might find no butter, and the very fact of finding no butter there might establish his case. He might have information that the person concerned had 100 lbs. of butter the day before and might want to know what became of it.

Perhaps I am completely wrong——

The people affected here are the producers, and not the distributors.

Sub-section (1) of Section 15, possibly, raises a point in this connection but, for the moment, I am confining myself to sub-section (2). Is the Minister serious in his contention that that applies to factories as well? Surely the factories will be registered and come, therefore, under sub-section (1). This deals with nonregistered places and only applies to farmers' houses. If an inspector enters a house under the power given to him under this section and, having done so, tries to do what the Minister now suggests—asks the amount of butter that they have—it seems to me that he will be committing an offence. He got into the house for one purpose only, and I doubt if he would not be committing an offence, having got in under that particular claim, if he proceeded to ask them how much butter they had in the house. I have a vague idea that on one occasion a Guard went to a house where there was a young fellow not attending school, and, under the power of making an investigation, gained an entry to that house. An action was brought against him for forcible entry. He had no right to do that. If an inspector goes beyond the mere limits of the section, not merely will the courts not be prejudiced, as the Minister suggested, against the farmer, but I think that the ordinary courts will be prejudiced against a person who goes into a house under one authority and uses it for another purpose.

Dr. Ryan

It is all very well to make these destructive criticisms, but I would like to know how Deputies think the Bill can be worked without this section. Take the case of a shopkeeper who is not registered. The inspector has a very strong suspicion that he is selling butter. Is he not to be allowed to enter there and ask for the man's books? Is he not to be entitled to go in and ask him to produce his books to find out whether he is selling butter or not?

Are you going to put him in the same category as the ordinary producer in the country?

Dr. Ryan

The Deputy goes back every time to the small producer. What about the big producer?

Any class of producer —deal with them, the small and the big.

Is the Minister taking the example of the shop that is licensed or unlicensed under this Bill?

Will the inspector under this Bill have authority to go into a shop that is not registered under this Bill? These inspectors will hold a warrant of authority, and will they have the right to go into a shop to demand the production of records?

Dr. Ryan

Yes, that is very plain.

But nothing else.

Will the inspector have the right to search under this Bill? Suppose an inspector goes into a farmer's house and asks if he has had any transactions in butter manufacture, or in selling butter. If he gets a noncommittal answer, and then asks for documents and the farmer says he has none, is he going to have the right to search? Will the Minister say what are his rights and powers beyond those of ordinary entry into the house?

Has the Minister made any estimate as to the number of inspectors he will require for the administration of this Bill when it becomes an Act?

Dr. Ryan

Four or five.

I suggest the Minister should take one of two courses. He should either abolish the sub-section altogether or extend the powers of the inspector under it. Obviously, from what Deputy O'Sullivan has said the powers proposed to be given to an inspector under this sub-section are totally inadequate. Apparently he has only the power to go in and inspect records. That power by itself is utterly useless. I suggest to the Minister that he should either get rid of this sub-section altogether, which leaves the inspector powerless, or amplify the powers proposed to be given to him.

Dr. Ryan

I will look into that.

Would the Minister say what he is going to look into? There is nothing political in this matter, and the Minister must see that the sub-section as it stands is likely to lead to an infringement of the rights of the citizen.

We are not quite sure as to what the Minister is going to look into.

Dr. Ryan

I am going to look into the suggestion made by Deputy McGuire.

And not into Deputy Brennan's suggestion, namely, as to whether he is interfering with the fundamental right of the citizen. I gathered from the Minister's statement that what he proposes to look into is seeking for more effective power to do what the sub-section proposes, and to make it more stringent than it is.

Dr. Ryan

We will have to look into both.

Is the Minister promising to consider wiping out the sub-section altogether and having no inspection?

Dr. Ryan

I do not see how the Bill could be worked if we did that. If the Department of Agriculture were told that there was a man in some town who was not registered dealing in butter, and that we were told further that we had no power to go into his premises to see whether in fact he was dealing in butter or not, then obviously we could not work the Bill at all.

It is the alarm that prevails with regard to the possible course of investigations of that kind that caused me to mention that matter at all. The anxiety will be lessened by the case that the Minister has himself put up. He suggested in the statement that he made a while ago that if an inspector learns that a man has a number of cows and that he can find no visible sign as to how he disposes of his butter, the inspector is then in the position that he has to enter the premises to investigate and find out. If the inspector cannot get satisfactory evidence of what became of the butter he might have to make a search. That would mean a search of the whole house, and I think that sort of power in the hands of an inspector of the Department is going to be very unpopular. I would appeal to the Minister not to allow such a power to remain in the Bill even if he never intended to use it.

The Minister stated to me a short time ago that he would require four or five inspectors for the administration of this measure. Will he give an undertaking to the House to that effect?

Dr. Ryan

No, that is an estimate.

I thought so.

Section 15 agreed to.
SECTION 16.
(2) Every exemption licence shall contain and be subject to the following conditions, that is to say:—
(b) the total quantity of butter sold in any one week by the licensee under the licence shall not exceed such quantity as may be prescribed by regulations made under this section or, if no such regulations are made, five pounds:

Dr. Ryan

I move amendment No. 16:—

In sub-section (2) (b), page 9, line 35, to delete the words "under the licence."

There is a certain amount of ambiguity about the paragraph as it reads. It says:

"The total quantity of butter sold in any one week by the licensee under the licence shall not exceed such quantity as may be prescribed," etc.

I am not sure whether that might not be interpreted to mean that if the Minister gives a licence to sell, say, 5lbs. of butter in the week, that the licensee might not be entitled to sell his 5lbs. free of levy and other butter, he being a registered person. I think it is better to have it clear. As a matter of fact, it has been pointed out to me that it is scarcely necessary to amend this because, in any case, under another sub-section the Minister might attach that condition, but I think it is better to have it clear.

The Minister would not think of raising that figure?

Dr. Ryan

I promised Deputy Haslett to consider that.

Amendment agreed to.
Section 16, as amended, agreed to.
Amendment No. 10 not moved.
Sections 17 to 22, inclusive, agreed to.
SECTION 23.
(1) The amount of the levy on any particular substance payable by any particular person under this Part of this Act in respect of any levy month shall be determined by the Minister, and the determination of such amount by the Minister shall be conclusive,
(2) Every question or dispute which shall arise as to whether a person is liable to pay a levy under this Part of this Act or in relation to any matter, whether of fact or opinion, involved in or incidental to the determination of the amount of any levy payable under this Part of this Act by any person in respect of any particular levy month shall be determined by the Minister whose determination thereof shall be final and conclusive.

I move amendment No. 11:—

In sub-section (1) to delete all words after the word "Minister," line 50 to the end of the sub-section.

Deputy O'Sullivan is not raising an objection to Section 20?

We are at Section 23.

I wonder why there should be special treatment for Kerry.

The Deputy knows well the extraordinary manner in which that particular area has suffered under the Minister in other directions. The Minister is now trying to make some slight amende.

Why should Kerry be exempt?

I am not raising that. I take it that sub-section (1) deals with the amount of the levy and sub-section (2) with practically everything else in reference to the question of the levy. The objection here is not to the determination of these matters by the Minister, but the apparent wish on the part of the Minister to take out from the ordinary jurisdiction of the courts what it seems to us is primarily a matter for the courts. We are not at all objecting that the matter should be determined in either case, in the first instance, by the Minister, but, as an ordinary layman would understand it, it practically means that a person in whose case the Minister has made a decision may feel aggrieved in that he has been deprived of his ordinary rights to have the matter tested in the court. In any case, any interference of that kind with the jurisdiction of the courts, or any attempt to take from the jurisdiction of the courts what are really legal decisions and decisions which ought to be come to by the courts, is highly objectionable and it is particularly objectionable in the case of rather small matters of this kind where the individual is concerned. It does deprive, it seems to me, the ordinary citizen of this State of his constitutional rights in this matter.

If an effort is being made to do that and if that is the effect of the section as it stands, it should not be done— the issue is altogether too important— as a kind of by-product of a section in a Bill of this kind. If that is the effect of the section, I am not raising the question, which may have to be determined somewhere else, as to whether it is or is not constitutional. About that, I know nothing and am not speaking at the moment. I have very definite opinions on the matter myself, but even if it were decided that there is such a power in the Oireachtas to pass a provision of this kind taking from the courts matters that primarily belong to the courts and handling them over to another party to decide, we feel that it is a thing that ought not to be done and for that reason we feel bound strongly to resist this proposal as it now stands in the Bill.

Dr. Ryan

I do not know if Deputy O'Sullivan is right, but I think he gave the impression that it might be held that we were doing something unconstitutional. I must say that personally I am not anxious to remove an appeal from a person who might feel aggrieved, but I think it is going to lead to a considerable amount of difficulty where you have perhaps a big number of very small claims. We might have claims for 2/- or 3/6 and a person might feel that we would not proceed against them because it would not be worth while. There is a tendency in cases of that kind not to bother about the small amounts because suing for them would lead to so much trouble. These were the cases I had in mind in asking for this particular power. I think it was not intended ever to exercise it where there was a large amount involved. That may look somewhat unfair—that we should use this power for very small amounts, but I did not intend to use it for any amount over £1 or some such amount. Anything over that would go to the courts in the ordinary way. I do agree that it is perhaps a rather dangerous power to take and I should like to reconsider it further.

I am glad the Minister has met me, because I understand what I might call the departmental reasons for his point of view. The Minister, however, ought to know by now that it is always the tendency of Departments to sidetrack the courts as much as possible. It is the inevitable tendency—I am not blaming them for it—of any Department to do that. Furthermore, it has been the tendency undoubtedly of Departments to take on to themselves decisions which the Constitution says definitely can only be made by the courts. There is, as the Minister knows, a case in point in the courts at present in connection with an action arising from a section of an Act passed in this House, and I am afraid the Minister in this particular section is slipping into the same—

Dr. Ryan

I think that is on a different plane.

If the Minister will read sub-section (2), particularly, or even sub-section (1), he will see that these matters are quite analogous to the ordinary matters that are determined every day by the courts in disputes between two individuals.

Dr. Ryan

I admit that.

Then it seems to me that the Minister is interfering with the jurisdiction of the courts. I suggest that I be allowed to withdraw this amendment and to put it down for Report Stage.

Dr. Ryan

I suggest that the Deputy should put it down for Report Stage because I might possibly go only half way to meet him.

In any case, I maintain that, against Section 21, sub-section (1), the thing would not operate. After all, though the Minister might claim in Section 23 that his determination was final and conclusive, for the purpose of recovery, he would eventually have to go to court. He would not have the right of seizure or distraint.

Dr. Ryan

The court would not question what the Minister said was due.

Under this Bill, they would be bound to accept what the Minister said, but, in any case, you gain nothing if a person is refractory.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Amendment No. 12 not moved.
Sections 23 to 37, inclusive, agreed to.

As regards Section 38, the amendments to it are not in order. They seek to extend the scope of the Bill beyond what was agreed to on the Second Stage. There was no fixation of prices envisaged on the Second Reading.

Of course I am not disputing the ruling, but perhaps I may be permitted to make a few remarks. May not the fixing of the retail price be one of the more obvious methods affecting the wholesale price?

Dr. Ryan

I do not think so. I do not think the fixing of the retail price has anything to do with what we are aiming at, that is, a better price for the producer. It may be that we should consider the consumer, but I think in no commodity has there been less profiteering than in butter.

Would the Minister agree, just as he argued a while ago, that paying the bounty indirectly affects the price paid even for the home consumed article, that the fixing of the retail price might be one of the more obvious ways, sometimes an easier way, to see that the producer gets a fair share out of it? Therefore, if the scope of the Bill is to fix various prices so that people engaged in the manufacture of butter should get a fair price out of it, they might get it more effectively in this way in some cases.

Section 38 agreed to.

The amendment to Section 39 is also not in order.

Sections 39 to 50, inclusive, agreed to.
FIRST SCHEDULE.

Dr. Ryan

I beg to move amendment No. 15:

In page 22, before paragraph 1— 1. On creamery butter... £1 5s. 0d. per cwt.—to insert the following new paragraph—

"1. On creamery butter which was delivered on sale in Saorstát Eireann and on which a levy at the appropriate rate was paid... £3 4s. 0d. per cwt."

Under the Dairy Produce Act there was a certain definition given of creamery butter. To put it briefly, it is only creamery butter which is exported or consumed at home, but if it passes through a factory it is not creamery butter any longer. That definition comes into this Bill and we have a great difficulty to meet. It has been the practice for a few years for certain factories to buy creamery butter, put it into tins and export it to certain Eastern markets. We find that under this Bill these creameries will have to pay the levy because it goes on sale. So far as the creamery butter is concerned it loses its identity as creamery butter and they have to pay the levy. The factories tinning the butter would have to pay 141/-; if they export it they will pay 141/-. The ordinary bounty would not enable them to compete in the foreign markets and the bounty payable under this amendment will be 25/- plus 39/-, making a total of £3 4s. 0d. That will permit that business to be carried on.

Is the difficulty due to the definition that is here?

Dr. Ryan

If that was the only difficulty we could get over it by amending the definition, but we find it is easier to do it this way rather than to exempt that particular portion of butter from levy when going to the manufacturer. There would be considerable difficulty about tracing that creamery butter, because it is held for a long time by the manufacturers after being tinned and before being exported. This is the easier way of dealing with it and there will be no trouble about checking the amount.

What does "delivered on sale in Saorstát Eireann" mean?

Dr. Ryan

It is slightly different from being sold. For instance, butter might be delivered to be sold and that would mean delivered on sale.

Amendment No. 15 agreed to.

Dr. Ryan

I move amendment No. 16, which is consequential:

In page 22, paragraph 1, to insert after the word "On" the words "all other".

Amendment No. 16 agreed to.
First Schedule, as amended, and Second Schedule agreed to.

At the beginning I asked the Minister a question about butter that is dealt with between the expiration of the other Act and the operation of the new Act. I presume that is provided for in Section 17. What I am anxious to ascertain is that that applies very definitely only to people to whom the other Act applies?

Dr. Ryan

Yes, people who were already registered under the old Act.

And on whom the old Act was operative, so to speak.

Dr. Ryan

It does include grocers, but they were registered under the old Act. It will apply only where the other Act applied.

It does not apply to a farmer selling to a private individual until this becomes law?

Dr. Ryan

No.

Is it true to say that the old Act did not operate in respect of grocers until you had served notice on them?

Dr. Ryan

That is the difference between the two.

The Title of the Bill put and agreed to.

Bill reported with amendments.

Dr. Ryan

I propose to take the next Stage on Tuesday, 14th May.

Are you not in a great hurry?

Dr. Ryan

Will this day week suit? I would like to get the Bill through next week. As the Deputies are aware, it is operative from the 1st April last.

There is an agreement that we sit on Friday morning but not on next Tuesday.

Report Stage fixed for Wednesday, 15th May.

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