asked the Minister for Agriculture whether he has any information as to whether any of the dead pork recently purchased by the Pigs Marketing Board was resold before curing to Free State curers; and, if so (a) what quantity was purchased; (b) at what price was it purchased; (c) at what price was it sold by the board to the curers.
Ceisteanna—Questions. Oral—Answers. - Activities of Pigs Marketing Board.
Dr. Ryan
I am not prepared to request the Pigs Marketing Board to supply information of the nature suggested.
Arising out of the Minister's reply, I want to ask does he not consider himself in some sense responsible for the manner in which the funds of the Pigs Marketing Board are used, and does he not consider it his duty to apply to the Pigs Marketing Board for the information which he is entitled under the Act to be supplied with, with a view to ascertaining whether the Pigs Marketing Board are handling their funds in the best interests of the people whom they are supposed to represent?
Dr. Ryan
It is not desirable that the operation of the Pigs Marketing Board should be discussed in public. The board have to publish at the end of the year a balance sheet like any other concern.
I want to ask the Minister is he aware that it is popularly believed that the board purchased pork in the public market at 49/- a cwt. and sold it to the curers at 25/- to 30/- per cwt., and does he not consider that activities of that kind require investigation?
Dr. Ryan
Surely the general public are not quite so simple as the Deputy.
asked the Minister for Agriculture whether he has received complaints from the producers of pigs in County Donegal that curers or their agents have bought pigs in Carndonagh and Milford districts at prices far below the fixed price; and, if so, whether he will transmit these complaints to the board with a view to prosecution by them under Section 154 of the Pigs and Bacon Act, 1935.
Dr. Ryan
The question of taking legal proceedings against persons who buy pigs under the price regulated for such pigs in the price orders made by the Pigs Marketing Board is a matter for the board, to whom complaints should be addressed.
I am asking the Minister, Sir, in this question if he has done his ordinary duty in addressing complaints to the Pigs Marketing Board and I am also asking him if he has received such complaints because I am satisfied that he has received such complaints; and having received them is he doing what he is paid to do, and that is to draw the attention of the Pigs Marketing Board to these complaints with a view to setting on foot these prosecutions he himself designed when the Act was going through the House?
Dr. Ryan
I am not, like the Deputy, exceeding the duties that I am paid to discharge.
Surely the Minister realises that it is his duty to bring complaints received from the producers of pigs before the Pigs Marketing Board with a view to getting for them the remedy he himself designed or does the Minister think he ought to throw these complaints into the wastepaper basket?
Dr. Ryan
No.
What has he done with them?
Dr. Ryan
Any communications I have got I had them passed on.
So then the Minister did receive these complaints?
Dr. Ryan
I did not say I got complaints.