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Dáil Éireann díospóireacht -
Thursday, 23 Nov 1939

Vol. 78 No. 2

Committee on Finance. - Pigs and Bacon (Amendment) Bill, 1939—Financial Resolution.

On the Order Paper there is a Financial Resolution for the Pigs and Bacon (Amendment) Bill, 1939. In the case of two similar Pigs and Bacon Bills, and of the Dairy Produce (Price Stabilisation) Bill, it was agreed to have one discussion covering both the Financial Resolution and the Second Stage of the Bill. It will be obvious to Deputies that to separate discussion would be to duplicate debate. I suggest, therefore, that that procedure referred to might be followed on this occasion. The Minister, in moving the Financial Resolution; would make his Second Reading speech, and subsequent debate would range over the Resolution and the Bill. At the conclusion of the debate, the Resolution would be put and decided; then, without debate, the question on the Second Stage of the Bill.

I take it, Sir, that that procedure can only be adopted with the consent of the House?

Because, otherwise, the procedure that has grown up here and that has been established, with regard to such matters, might fall into abeyance.

Quite. The Deputy's fears are groundless. I simply suggest to the House that a certain procedure might be followed as in the case of the two previous Bills. I desired to ascertain the opinion of the House, with whom the decision lies.

I think, Sir, that it is highly unlikely that a second discussion would arise on the Financial Resolution, although we know, from past experience, that such a thing is possible.

The Deputy realises that this is a Financial Resolution, not a Money Resolution.

Yes, but unless the Chair desires, I should prefer not to set a precedent in this matter, or to make the matter a precedent of the House. I do not think it is likely that a debate would arise on the Financial Resolution.

There are three precedents for the course suggested by the Chair but, of course, such agreed precedents do not bind the House now. The suggestion is made in the interests of orderly debate.

Yes, Sir, but with one reservation: there may be some questions to be asked in connection with the Financial Resolution.

The Financial Resolution comes first.

But it is not to be debated first?

The Financial Resolution is to be decided first, but the debate might cover both the Financial Resolution and the Bill. If any questions should arise, the Chair will afford facilities during the debate.

Yes, Sir, but after that there might be some questions to be put in connection with the Financial Resolution, and may we take it that such questions might be put?

I move:—

(1) (a) That there shall be charged, levied, and paid a levy at such rates as shall be fixed by the Pigs and Bacon Commission under statutory authority on every carcase of a pig used for the production of bacon at licensed premises during such periods as may be appointed by statute.

(b) That the levy mentioned in the foregoing paragraph shall be paid by the licensee of the licensed premises at which the carcase of a pig, in respect of which the levy is payable, is used for the production of bacon.

(2) (a) That there shall be charged, levied, and paid a levy at such rates as shall be fixed by the Pigs and Bacon Commission under statutory authority on bacon sold in the State by a licensee during such periods as may be appointed by statute.

(b) That the levy mentioned in the foregoing paragraph shall be paid by the licensee by whom the bacon, in respect of which the levy is payable, is sold.

(3) (a) That there shall be charged, levied, and paid a levy at such rates as may be fixed by the Pigs and Bacon Commission under statutory authority on bacon exported by a licensee, during such periods as may be appointed by the said Commission, to such countries as may be appointed by the said Commission.

(b) That the levy mentioned in the foregoing paragraph shall be paid by the licensee by whom the bacon, in respect of which the levy is payable, is exported.

(4) (a) That there shall be charged, levied and paid a levy at such rates as shall be prescribed by or under statutory authority on each pig our-chased by a licensee during such periods as may be appointed by statute.

(b) That the levy mentioned in the foregoing paragraph shall be paid by the licensee by whom the pig, in respect of which the levy is payable, is purchased.

(5) (a) That there shall be charged, levied and paid a levy at such rates as may be fixed by the Pigs and Bacon Commission under statutory authority on each pig purchased by a licensee during such periods as may be appointed by the said Commission.

(b) That the levy mentioned in the foregoing paragraph shall be paid by the licensee by whom the pig, in respect of which the levy is payable, is purchased.

(6) That the said levies shall be paid to the Pigs and Bacon Commission at such times as may be appointed by statute.

(7) That provision shall be made by statute for the collection and enforcement of the said levies.

(8) That in this Resolution—

the expression "the Pigs and Bacon Commission" means a body to be established under that name by statute;

the word "bacon" includes ham;

the expression "licensed premises" means premises licensed by the Minister for Agriculture under the Pigs and Bacon Act, 1935 (No. 24 of 1935), for the production of bacon therein;

the word "licensee" means a person licensed in respect of licensed premises by the Minister for Agriculture under the Pigs and Bacon Act, 1935.

Speaking of what is contained in the Bill, the first big question that arises is as to the commission which is to take the place of the two boards—the Bacon Marketing Board and the Pigs Marketing Board. Deputies will have read, I take it, both the Report of the Prices Commission and the Report of the Agricultural Commission. Both of those commissions recommended one board instead of two. There was some slight difference between them as regards the constitution of the one board, but that difference was not material. If no war had taken place, it was my intention to bring in a Bill which would, to a great extent, carry out the recommendations of both these commissions so far as the board was concerned. As a result of the war, however, we had to set up a Bacon Export Committee here. The importer —the Food Controller—in Great Britain has now set up machinery under which he takes control of all bacon landed in Great Britain, and it was necessary on our side to have some control over the export of the same commodity from here—in fact, that all our bacon should go out through one exporter. Seeing we had this Export Committee set up which would be dealing to a great extent, with the bacon position and the bacon trade, if the two boards were to remain, in addition —or one board for that matter—the Pigs Board would have practically only the function of dealing with the price of pigs, and the Bacon Board would have practically only the business of dealing with the production quota and the home-sales quota. The price of pigs, which the Pigs Board have been dealing with for the past three or four years, will, I think, for the duration of the war in any event, bear a very close relation to the price of our bacon on export. In other words, I think that for some time to come—at least during the war period— the price of pigs will largely depend on the price of bacon. For the last three or four years the position was the reverse. The price of pigs was fixed, and other things followed. That question of fixing the price of pigs will be largely a question of calculation. There will not be, to the same extent, the matters of judgment and so forth which came into it in the past. As regards the production quota, it has been found, in practice, to be also a matter of calculation on the part of the Bacon Marketing Board. The Bacon Marketing Board had to make up their minds how many pigs were likely to be available for the market in the coming month, and, in that way, fix the production quota.

Seeing that these things are becoming largely mechanical, there is, I think, no necessity for some time for the existence of a separate board to deal with these matters in addition to the Bacon Export Committee which we have had to set up. I hope to go back to some of the reasons for the setting up of the commission later, but I am dealing with the matters in the Bill at the moment. I want to deal with them firstly.

The production sub-quota—that is, the quota allotted to each factory by the Bacon Marketing Board—was fixed on the amount of bacon which the factory undertook to export during the month to come and the amount of bacon which was sold at home during the same month last year. On considering this matter, the officers of my, Department, supported, I think, by the Agricultural Commission, thought that the home-sales quota should be dropped, so that, in this Bill, that matter has been dealt with. If this Bill passes, there will no longer be a home-sales quota but, so far as this Bill is concerned, the production quota will remain.

What about the special quota?

That is part of the export quota. We are not dealing with it here.

I am referring to the special killing quota.

There is a production quota which is based on the amount of bacon which the factory has undertaken to export during the month and also on the home-sales quota that the factory had during the same month last year. That is the production subquota allocated to each factory. There was an additional quota allocated where the board had found that, in certain months, it had under-estimated the number of pigs in the country. I do not think that there is any such thing as a special quota.

I will tell you something about it.

In this Bill three funds are referred to. The general fund will be levied on the curers for the general expenses of the office and staff of the commission. There is, then, the stabilisation fund. Up to this we had what was called a hypothetical price, and the hypothetical price was in the nature of a levy taken off all production and put into a fund. Out of that fund was paid a certain amount on export to equate the prices which the curer might get on the foreign market and on the home market. That has been changed in this Bill. The stabilisation fund is much on the same system as that which we have in the case of butter. Under this Bill the commission may levy on any bacon with reference to class or with reference to consignment. That is to say, they may levy on bacon to be sold in the home market or on bacon to be exported to any particular market, or to particular markets. In the same way, they will be empowered to pay a subsidy on any particular class of bacon sold on any particular market. I do not foresee that it will be necessary to use this stabilisation fund if conditions remain as they are. If the price of pigs can be regulated according to the price of our bacon exported, it should not be necessary to use this price stabilisation fund at all. Any funds in the hypothetical price fund at present will be transferred to the stabilisation fund.

Does the Minister happen to know what sum of money is in the hypothetical fund?

I will give the Deputy that later. The third fund is the insurance fund. Under the original Act, the board was empowered to strike a levy on pigs delivered to the factory. That was collected by the curers, and each curer kept his own fund for insurance purposes, to pay for pigs condemned or for parts of pigs condemned. It has been found from experience that a number of factories have lost; a number of others have gained on it. It appears from the returns which we have got that the incidence of tuberculosis in particular is heavier in some districts than in others. At least some of the curers have requested that this might be made a central fund—in other words, that the levy collectable up to this should be forwarded to the commission and that the commission should pay it on certificates issued by their own officers for pigs condemned or parts of pigs condemned.

To make a common fund?

Yes, make a common fund. I have said that the home-sales quota will be abolished. The undertaking to export bacon will, of course, remain. That is not regulated under this Bill, nor under any of the Bacon Acts. It is regulated under the Regulation of Exports Act. Under that Act a curer undertakes to export a certain amount of bacon in the month, and, if he does not fulfil that undertaking, he is liable to a penalty; but the penalty that has been most effective is that, where he falls down on his quantity in any particular month, he is left to that level and those who are looking for an export quota get whatever balance there is. In future, then, when a curer gets a production quota from the commission, he will export a certain amount of bacon and the remainder he can dispose of in the home market; but there will be no home-sales quota and, therefore, he can sell whatever bacon he can place on the home market, or have a carry over to the following month.

In this Bill there is also a section— the second last section—which deals with costings. It was thought, when passing the original Act, that we had given the board power to get costings from the factories. We found, however, that that power was not really effective. It has been made effective in this, so that the commission can get the costings from the factories for the production of bacon. Then, at the end of the Bill, there are certain repeals— repeals of a number of sections relating to the constitution of the boards.

I want to get back now to the production quota. Deputies might very legitimately ask why we had not dealt with this production quota in some more satisfactory way. I quite admit that a great deal of the trouble that has arisen with regard to gluts of pigs and so on is due to the production quota. Even though the total production quota for the month may be correct, it is found in practice that in some areas the local factories are unable to absorb the pigs in that area under the production sub-quotas, with the result that farmers have found it hard to dispose of pigs towards the end of the month, or, perhaps, in the middle of the month. There is very great difficulty in dealing with this question. To abolish the production quota completely is, I am afraid, surrounded by a certain amount of danger. There is, I think, the danger, for instance, that the bigger curers with better organisation and a better system all over the country for getting pigs would inevitably get more pigs than they are getting at present, and the smaller curers with a poorer organisation would not be able to get the pigs they are getting under the present system.

I believe this might be remedied— I am not sure if I am right—and I certainly would like any suggestions. We have not had suggestions about this from either of the commissions which have examined this question of the production quota. I would welcome suggestions on that point. I have been examining the question and considering it and I think I may be able to offer amendments to the Dáil on the Committee Stage that would at least enable the commission to try as an experiment the abolition of the production quota.

Hear, hear!

I think we should not, however, make it a hard and fast rule of the Act to abolish it completely. We might bring in certain amendments on the Committee Stage under which we could enable the commission to abolish the quota for a month, or for two or three months, and see how things work out. If nothing very disastrous occurs then, we might adopt it as a permanent procedure; but, if we see that there are those dangers ocurring of which I am afraid, we would have to go back to the original position, and try to think of something else.

There is one other matter to which I would like to refer. In the Interim Report of the Agricultural Commission a great deal of attention was given to the question of rationalisation. I have not—nor has my Department—had time to consider that fully. It is a very big question and would require great consideration before anything could be done in the way suggested by the Agricultural Commission. I think every Deputy will agree that—however we may get on at the present time, or as long as the war lasts—we will certainly have to be prepared for a very stiff fight to hold even our present position with regard to bacon when the war is over. I think we will have to examine every possible way of making economies in the production of our bacon. Whether that means rationalisation or not I do not know, but we will have to examine the thing from that point of view. Having that in mind, it seems to me that a commission of the kind suggested in this Bill should be useful. A commission with the powers they would have with regard to getting the costings of the factories, and having the administration that up to this was in the hands of two boards, should be able to get very useful knowledge and should be in a position to give good advice to the Minister for Agriculture, after they had been in office for some time.

In the meantime, while we are waiting to give them some opportunity of experience and some opportunity of getting information that they require, in order to be in a position to advise what had best be done as a permanent solution for the bacon factories on the question of rationalisation, when getting these costings they should be in a position to fix what is a fair margin for the curers when they get pigs at these fixed prices. Having made up their minds as to the fair margin for curers, they should be in a position to advise the Prices Commission. The Prices Commission have, of course, power to examine these matters; and, between the two—that is, between the commission taking charge of the bacon industry and the Prices Commission— they should be able to fix a fair ex-factory price for bacon on the home market. If they are able to do that, I think they will have justified their appointment under this Bill. I have only spoken about the big questions dealt with in the Bill, and have not gone into detail, but I shall be glad to answer any question with regard to details, the funds or the levies, which any Deputy may care to ask.

How much is in the hypothetical fund?

I shall be able to answer that question later on.

Is it anything considerable?

No, I do not think it is considerable at the moment. I think, as a matter of fact, it is very small.

There is no use disguising the fact that we approach this Bill with grave mistrust. We took a risk on the last Pigs and Bacon Bill, on the urgent representations of the Minister that the provisions of that Bill were vitally necessary to save the pig industry in the crisis which he and his colleagues were very largely responsible for precipitating at that time, and, in looking back upon it, I think that Bill could have been made to work, if it had been worked by men who wanted to make it a success, and who wanted to give the pig producers of the country a square deal. But it was not so worked. It was worked by brigands who used the machinery of the Bill to line their own pockets and rob the people of this country as fast as they could rob them.

I can give the Deputy the information about the hypothetical fund for the purposes of his speech now. I think there should be about £15,000 or £16,000 in the hypothetical fund.

Could the Minister give us any information as to what was in it from the beginning, and how it was disposed of?

I can give the Deputy what was paid in and taken out each year.

And to whom?

I could not say what was paid to individual factories, but I can give the amounts collected and paid out. It was paid out on exports in all cases. In 1935 it was nil, because there was no collection; in 1936 £247,000 was collected and £165,000 paid out; in 1937 £799,000 was collected and £803,000 paid out; in 1938 £507,000 was collected and £569,000 paid out; and to the end of September this year £436,000 was collected and £436,000 paid out.

As I say, the Bill which became the Pigs and Bacon Act, I believe, could have been operated successfully but for the fact that it was operated by brigands for brigands, and there is no doubt that the bacon curers who had the advantage of that Act made great fortunes, but in the process of making those fortunes, they reduced the pig population of this country by over 100,000, made the production of pigs unprofitable for our people and did the whole economic life of this country, and our agricultural industry, an injury from which it will take many years to recover. The Minister has very kindly intervened to give us the figures of the hypothetical price fund. I ask Deputies to throw their minds back to the time when we were discussing that Bill. Is it not a fact that we all understood that the hypothetical price fund was simply a matter of drawing in money from the pig producer at one part of the year, and passing it out to the pig producer at another part of the year, so as to equate the price available for pigs pretty generally throughout the whole 12 months? That is the impression this House was left under when this Bill was passing into law.

What actually happened was that during certain months of the year, the pig producer was plucked to the tune of as much as £799,000 in one year, and when the curers wanted it to provide one another with a hand-out, they sat down together and distributed the whole sum amongst themselves, to such good effect that, in the last year, they collected £436,000, and, to the even halfpenny, they doled that sum out amongst themselves. At this hour, nobody has come before the producers of pigs, nobody has ever come before the House and nobody has ever told anybody in respect of that sum of nearly £2,000,000, which was taken from the producers of pigs by the Pigs and Bacon Marketing Boards, by what right or title the curers pocketed every farthing of it. I blame the Minister, and I think he is very blameworthy in that respect, that he allowed that monstrous scandal to go on. His attention was drawn to it time and time again in the House, and he closed his eyes, and to this hour he has never told us how he justifies the distribution of £2,000,000, levied on the pig producers of the country, amongst a limited number of bacon curers.

The Minister now produces another Pig and Bacon Bill. On its face, I think it is going to improve the situation, but from the experience we have had of commission or board control of the pig industry during the last five years, we apprehend that this Bill may be as scandalously misused as the last Act was, and I confess that my apprehensions are made graver when I hear the Minister say that the Pigs and Bacon Commission is to be constituted from the personnel of the Bacon and Pig Export Committee which is at present a division of the Department of Agriculture. I take it the Minister did say that in his opening words?

I implied that, anyway, and it is true.

The personnel of that board is well known to us all. It is not an agreeable task to deal trenchantly and openly with the records of individuals, but I have no confidence whatever in the chairman of that board. He was chairman of the Pigs Marketing Board and the Bacon Marketing Board, and he was directly responsible for the appalling disaster that these boards brought upon the industry, and a man whose record has been one of unqualified failure and disaster, a man who allowed himself to be made the tool of the bacon curers to the great loss of the pig producers and of the masses of the people, is to be re-established as chairman of this new board. Such an appointment fills me with consternation, and leads me to believe that we are going to go through something very like the martyrdom we went through during the past five years. It is no pleasure to say that. The gentleman in question may be qualified to fill many other posts with distinction, but his record as a pig administrator and a bacon administrator does not entitle him to the confidence of this House, or of anybody else, and the Minister prejudices this whole scheme by reposing confidence in him for this highly technical work.

So far as the other members of the commission are concerned, I think it would be hard to find better men for the task, or men who have a fuller understanding of the difficulties that surround pig production in this country, and of the problem with which the average small farmer has to contend if he is trying to make a profit out of pigs. It is their presence on that body which makes this Bill at all acceptable. We all know that, during the last five years, disaster after disaster overtook anybody who ventured to engage in the production of pigs, and the Minister's reference to the failure of the production quota calls to my mind the deep distress that was created in Monaghan, Cavan and other parts of northern Ireland where the people who frequently—not once, but frequently— brought into the factories for slaughter pigs which they had carefully prepared to qualify as grade A, were driven away from the factories and told that the factories could not take them for another fortnight or three weeks. When they brought the pigs back at the end of that period, the same factories told them that, as a result of the feeding which the pigs had consumed during the intervening two or three weeks, they were now too fat and they were going to be paid 10/- a cwt. less than they would have got if the pigs had been received on the first occasion they were brought in. So the unfortunate farmer was not only cut in the price of the pigs but he had to bear the loss of the feeding which the pigs had consumed in the intervening period. That has been going on, not for a week, a month or a year but for the past four years, with the result that farmers gave up producing pigs altogether.

I cannot see how administration of that kind entitles any person associated with that board to public confidence. I think the Minister is absolutely mad to jeopardise his whole new departure by presenting the picture of making a complete change when in fact he is restoring us to the position in which we were in the past. Now, it may seem to some in this House strange that such importance should be attached to one member of a commission of three persons. If that does seem strange, Deputies will readily understand my apprehension when I remind them that, under the constitution of this commission, which is analogous to that of the two boards which are being replaced, if there is a disagreement between the two ordinary members of a board, the chairman has the right to decide anything that comes before the board. As I read this Bill, if the two experts on the commission differ, it is not a question of the matter being referred to the Minister and a decision on policy being taken but the one man on the board, who has no experience at all, can take the matter out of the hands of the experts and his judgment prevails. Is that correct?

The position is not exactly the same as before. The position before was that if the board differed then the chairman could do anything he liked but, in this case, he is only like any ordinary chairman. He must agree with one or other of the members.

He must agree with one or other?

Yes, to get a decision. It is a majority decision.

But, in fact, the situation is that here you have two men who know as much about pigs as any man in Ireland. If they differ a decision has to be taken between them by somebody whose record in this particular business we know. I want to make it emphatically clear that I am not aspersing the general character of this man. I do not suggest that he is not a man of the highest honour and respectability but this is a highly technical and difficult business and in this highly technical and difficult business, in which his previous administration has been such a disastrous failure, he is the person, by the constitution of the commission under the Bill, who is to determine as between the two experts as to who is right. That seems to me to be an absolutely fatal proposal calculated to jeopardise the success of the scheme which it is proposed to put into force.

The Minister in introducing the Bill spoke of a recommendation of the Agricultural Commission for rationalisation and seemed to view that recommendation with some degree of favour. Let us strip rationalisation of its attractive description. Deputy Allen believes in rationalisation. What does rationalisation mean? It means closing all the small factories and leaving it to the large factories to do all the curing in this country. It means running the bacon industry in this country on the same lines that Messrs. Joseph Rank and Company would like to run the milling industry. The end of that, absolutely inevitably, will be that the bacon industry must be run by the Government and does anybody consider that desirable? Are we going to hand over, after our experience of the bacon curers for the last five years, all the pig producers into the hands of two or three curers who will rationalise the industry according to Deputy Allen's view or do we want the small factories, which are at present operating, to go on competing against the big factories so as to keep pig prices up and to give the small farmer a decent price for his product, whereas he would have to take whatever price was offered to him if there were only two or three factories in a ring running the whole show? If you are going to rationalise the industry, you will have to nationalise the industry and I am perfectly certain that, if you nationalise the industry, nobody would get any advantage out of it because instead of 15 or 16 units, operating under the spur of competition, bringing their plant up to the highest point of efficiency, and selling their bacon as cheaply as they possibly can in order to capture the domestic or the foreign market, you will have an unwieldy, incompetent centre running the entire industry to the grave detriment of the whole pig production business in the country.

The Minister speaks, in the concluding paragraph, of the desirability of this new commission educating itself by requiring information continually from the factories as to costings and other details. I beg the Minister to reflect on the intolerable inconvenience to men who are trying to earn their living of having bureaucrats eternally buzzing around their ears. I can imagine an unfortunate bacon curer getting requisitions on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday for costings of this, that and the other— how much does it cost to make bacon, how much does it cost to make black pudding, how much does it cost to make lard—and collecting all this information for the intellectual delectation of these interfering bureaucrats. In the meantime the unfortunate curer who is required to make out all these returns is struggling frantically to earn sufficient to pay his workmen and to keep a roof over his own head. My experience of requisitions for information of that kind is that they are an unmitigated nuisance and that they seldom happen to serve any useful purpose. If you have a suspension of the home sales quota and the production quota in Ireland, competition will keep bacon prices reasonably low. That is the only effective means of regulating competition and of holding the scales evenly between the small curer and the large curer.

Suppose all the units joined to form a monopoly?

There is one way of dealing with that danger. You can deal with it by saying that if there is going to be any monopoly in this country the Government will run it. I do not think there is any danger of a monopoly because there is sufficient competition at the present time. As in the milling industry, so in this industry. They should be told that it is contrary to public policy to have monopoly and that if a monopoly is ultimately formed it will be taken over by the Government for £100,000, whether the assets are worth £1,000,000 or £10,000,000.

There is no obligation on anybody to join a monopoly and there is no confiscation if you say to a man: "If you go out of your way to form a monopoly, where you have had full notice that that is contrary to public policy, do not imagine that you are going to get full value for the assets which you create and which society did not wish you to create." I do not believe that that menace is serious, and I think that on the whole the Minister is right when he says that while it is his desire to suspend the production quota completely it would be better to introduce amendments along the lines he prescribes under which the production quota would be suspended but it would be held in terrorem to prevent any individual firm getting control of all the other units in the industry.

Now, there is one immensely important matter in connection with this Bill which is not clear. One of the reasons why the Bacon Marketing Board and the Pigs Marketing Board under the old Act were able to get away with the highway robbery which they did permit was that there was nobody in this Dáil answerable for their conduct. The Minister could always side-step inquiries which were directed to him as to why the scandals of which we all know were allowed to persist. Is it the Minister's intention under this Bill to answer in the Dáil for the activities of this commission?

If you think it desirable, I do not object.

May I say to the Minister at once that we do. We attach immense importance to that. I think it would allay the anxieties of many who would be tempted to oppose the Bill if they knew that the Minister for Agriculture, whoever he may be, would be answerable to this House for the activities of this commission.

That is a point I would like the Deputy to think over. I did anticipate that a request like that would be put up. I did think of putting in a clause to this effect, that the Minister could direct the commission with regard to policy. I think something of that nature would cover it. I am prepared to move an amendment to that effect if the Dáil wishes it, but I do not know if it is altogether desirable.

I do not ask the Minister to insert any kind of inconvenient expedient, provided he does make it perfectly clear that the right of a Deputy to call upon the Minister for Agriculture to answer for the commission in this House is clearly recognised in the Act. Whether it would be desirable to say that the members of the board should be appointed or be dismissable at the Minister's pleasure——

That is in it.

I shall be quite content if the Minister, after consultation with the Parliamentary Draftsman, inserts some words which will make it perfectly clear that the Minister is responsible to answer in the Dáil for this commission. The Minister may insert the words which are least inconvenient to him. We are not to lose sight of the fact that there are arguments against that, or that there are arguments which can be advanced to suggest that it is more convenient, when you set up an autonomous body of this kind, to leave it as autonomous as you can. But I think the arguments against that view are far more important, because, as we all know, the persons primarily concerned are the small pig producers. It is notorious that the small men are the most difficult to organise in defence of their own interests. They will suffer the most ghastly exploitation before they will make themselves effectively vocal. In this case, when they find themselves unable to get a remedy for the grievances under which they suffer, they will stop keeping pigs altogether, with the result that they will be hitting the State and the community the deadliest blow they could, because our exports of bacon and pig products will drop. While it is very easy to drive them out of the industry, it is very often extremely difficult to get them back into it. Once a farmer gets badly burnt in pigs, it will take nearly two years to persuade him to make the venture again.

Therefore, I am firmly convinced that it is necessary to have a remedy available to us of raising anything that appears to us in the nature of a grave injustice by way of question and answer, or by a motion in the Dáil. Bear this in mind: that so long as that right is there, it is highly unlikely we will ever have to use it. The members of the commission will know that there is no use in their attempting to get away with anything, because it can be raised immediately in Dáil Eireann; whereas, if the remedy was not there, there would be a temptation to yield to pressure from this side or from that, in the knowledge that, if anyone tried to raise it in the Dáil, the Minister would side-step it and say that he was not prepared to answer for the acts of the members of the commission, because they were not directly under his control.

Another matter arises. Under the Principal Act, provision was made to retire certain small curers from the industry and to compensate them out of the funds of the board for the loss to which they were put by having their business closed up. There was this extraordinary provision in the Act: that if a small curer was not content with the compensation offered him by the Pigs or Bacon Marketing Board he could appeal to a tribunal. But, to his astonishment, when he approached the Appeal Tribunal, he found sitting on it the chairman of the board which had made the award.

That was in the Act.

I know it was, but nevertheless it did astonish the poor man who was looking for his rights before the Appeal Tribunal. He was more astonished still to discover that, if the arbitrators disagreed, a situation could arise in which that disagreement could go on indefinitely, in which event he got no compensation at all. If a man appealed to the tribunal against the compensation awarded to him, and if the tribunal did not agree as to what the proper award should be, he got nothing at all, so that the situation could remain deadlocked indefinitely, and the poor man had no remedy. He had no means of making them agree. I therefore submit to the Minister that the opportunity of this Bill should be taken at once to appoint an entirely independent arbitration body to determine matters of this kind; because, remember, even assuming that the old arbitration body which contained the chairman of the board that made the first award was effective and efficient, it is not enough to do justice in the case of an appeal. What you must do is to persuade the person who appeals that he has got justice. It is extremely difficult to do that if he finds that he is appealing from one judge to the same judge in the superior court to which he goes. Therefore, I urge on the Minister to provide some independent tribunal which will not only do effective justice, but which will carry conviction to the mind of the appellant that effective justice has been done.

The next all important question, infinitely more important than the one to which I have just referred, is the matter of the export of live pigs. When the Principal Act was passing through the House we pressed very strongly for some representation, on the boards then appointed, for the Pig Dealers' Association. Now, the pig dealers have been for years the most important element in the whole pig production industry in this country. I am not making the case to this House that the pig dealers all went round in long white gowns, that they had wings on their shoulders and haloes on their heads. They were not saints, and they were not friars or monks. They were business men out to earn their living. They were not in the business for love of the pig producer. They were in the business because that was the way they were earning their living, and they endeavoured to make as good a living as they could. But the net result of their activities in the fairs and markets of this country was that there was competition for the pigs.

If Henry Denny marched into a town where a pig fair was being held, and was not prepared to give the farmer the price that he thought he should get for his pigs, the farmer could then take his pigs to one of the dealers from Cork, Waterford or Limerick and sell his pigs to him for shipment to Birmingham, and could tell Henry Denny, or the owner of any other bacon factory in the country, to go and boil himself.

Sometimes the pig rearer gets a better price by selling to the dealer and shipping the pigs to Birmingham. Sometimes he gets a better price by selling to one of the representatives of the curing factories in this country for shipment to Waterford, Limerick or elsewhere. But always when you had that competition operating it was found to be a very healthy competition and, like the old story, so long as it was there you did not notice it. But the moment that competition disappeared you missed it very seriously. I remember that in the old days throughout the pig fairs of the country the gold rush in California for the gold diggings was nothing to the rush of the pig dealers when the clock struck the hour of 8 o'clock in the morning. The pig dealers ran through the fair marking the pigs as fast as they could. So very keen was the competition amongst the pig dealers that they commenced business earlier and earlier so that eventually the pig fairs in the West of Ireland started at half-past three in the morning. The pig dealers came out with a lantern and they bought the pigs by candle light. This went on for some time but, ultimately, it was agreed that the fair would not start until 8 o'clock in the morning. At the moment the hour of 8 o'clock struck they went through the fair like a blast of wind, the pigs were quickly bought up, the people got their money and went home. When the pig jobbers were eliminated there was no going through the fair like a blast of wind except the north wind that perished you while you waited for a dealer to come up. Some people then remonstrated with individuals for sending their pigs to the factory but it really became obligatory after some time to send pigs to the factory, because when you went to the fairs you found there were so few pig dealers there. The thing became a vicious circle; people began to send their pigs to the factory, the supply at the fairs dwindled with the result that pig buyers became more and more reluctant to go out to the fairs. Ultimately the buyers did not come at all, because the Pigs Marketing Board would not give them any licences to ship pigs to England.

At the present moment fat pigs in this country are delivered to the factories in Ireland at 75/- a cwt. Every one of those pigs could be sold in Birmingham at a price to the pig breeder of 84/- a cwt. I do not think the Minister will deny that. There is a fair at Knockcroghery to-morrow morning and I want to say this now that if licences were issued for the export of Knockcroghery pigs to Birmingham the men who bring their pigs to that fair would go home with £2,000 more in their pockets than they will in fact receive to-morrow for their pigs. I challenge the Minister to deny that. The farmers who bring their pigs to that fair to-morrow will go home with £2,000 less in their pockets because the pigs are being kept in this country for the factories, instead of being exported to Birmingham for sale at the most profitable market the farmers could get. I think that situation is quite unthinkable and intolerable. We ought to get from the Minister the most categorical undertaking that ample provision will be made for the export to England of fat pigs which, for one reason or another, exceed the maximum weight permissible for grade A pigs in this country. I am not asking—though some of my colleagues may—to make statutory provision in the Bill to that effect. I am quite content to leave that to the decision of the commission without drafting a provision to that effect if the Minister says that is the purpose he has in mind. I wish to emphasise this point—that unless the House gives a clear undertaking that it wishes that to be done, then it is deliberately perpetuating a situation whereby the farmers in Knockcroghery to-morrow are going to be fined £2,000 because the Minister will not allow pigs to be exported to Birmingham. There is another matter to which I wish to refer. As I read this Bill and as it was explained by the Minister in his introductory observations, I understand that the production quota is virtually going to be suspended. Will the Minister tell us, categorically, that the effect of the Bill is to give that suspension so that every curer in this country will be able to export and handle whatever pigs are supplied?

That fact is of supreme importance and the sooner it is understood by everyone the better. It is one of the qualities of this Bill which specially commend it to me. When we pass this Bill and set up this machinery, it means that the day has gone for ever when the farmer who brings his pig to the factory is informed that the factory cannot take it for a fortnight and told to bring it back then. When he brought it back, the pig was not in grade A and he got less for it. When this Bill passes that sort of thing is gone for ever. If that provision were the only provision in the Bill I would be inclined to vote for it. There is no need to elaborate that. Any man who ever reared a pig in this country recognises the incalculable value of that change in the law. So I pass from that aspect of the Bill.

There is another immensely important matter. The Minister will remember that on the Committee Stage of the original Act I put forward a proposal for the fixing of the price of bacon in relation to the standard price of feeding-stuffs, as is done in Great Britain. That was an extremely difficult amendment to draft, and in my zeal to draft it I drafted it in such a cast-iron form that I did not feel it right to press it on the Minister. I remember saying to him on that occasion that, to tell the truth, that amendment was drafted in such a form that I could not press it upon him, and that it was drafted with a view to raising the matter so that the principle could be examined. I want now to suggest to the Minister that the whole purpose of fixing the price for pigs was to give the pig producer a feeling of security; to deliver him from the apprehension under which he used to labour: that the price of pigs would collapse before his pigs were finished and ready for the market. That being so, I submit to the Minister that it is quite useless to fix now as a price for pigs a price that is going to be operative only for a month or six weeks ahead. It would be much better if the Minister would say: "This is the 1st December, and on the first March next, grade A pigs will be 85/- per cwt.; grade B 83/- per cwt., and grade C, 76/-", and that the price which we may expect to get for pigs that we would turn out on the 1st December of this year will be the price that was declared on the 1st August last, so that when we saw the December price, as published last August, we knew that if we bought a dozen bonhams and put them in to fatten, we would get a certain price when those bonhams were ready for the knife. That was a promise, and on the faith of that promise, people were induced to put them in. But there is no use advocating that plan if, when the Minister has fixed a price, say, on the 1st August, which is to be payable for pigs delivered in the factory in the month of December, I put in my 12 pigs, calculating that I will be able to make a profit on them when I sell them in December, and the Minister for Industry and Commerce, or the Minister for Supplies, comes along in September or October and puts 4/- per cwt. on Indian meal, and 3/- per cwt. on pollard and bran; because, if he is allowed to do that, then my whole calculation is upset, and the pigs upon which I confidently hoped to make a profit immediately became a potential source of loss. Therefore, I suggest this amendment for my first proposal; instead of saying on 1st August: "We will pay 85/- on 1st December."

I would ask the Minister to work out, on a formula similar to that employed in Great Britain, the standard cost of a pig's ration, and to say: "The price on 1st December will be 85/-, assuming that the price of the basic ration on 1st December is the same as it is to-day, but if between 1st August, when I fixed the December price, and 1st December, when the pigs come to be sold, the price of feeding-stuffs fluctuates, then the price on 1st December will be fixed on the basis of the average price of feeding-stuffs over the intervening period, and will bear the same relation to that average price that 85/- bore to the price of feeding-stuffs on the day that I made my Order." I do not think that is an impractical proposal. I believe it is the only proposal which will achieve the fundamental purpose that was in view when all this legislation was set on foot, of giving the producer of pigs an assurance that, if he puts in pigs and exercises reasonable efficiency in bringing them to perfection, he will get a reasonable profit on the four or six months' work he does.

Reference has been made to the special export quota, and the special killing quota rendered necessary thereby. I recognise the difficulty that Deputy Gorey has in mind when he raises that matter. I think the new dispensation under which the home sales quota is abolished and the production quota suspended will largely dissipate the difficulties arising out of the allocation of the special export quota to which Deputy Gorey referred. But Deputy Gorey has a knowledge not only of the production end of this business but of the manufacturing and distributive end as well, and there may be problems present to his mind which are not at the moment present to mine, and on which he will be very much better able to elaborate than I am in a position to do. I, therefore, confine myself to saying that, with considerable misgivings, I am prepared, and the Party to which I belong is prepared, to give this Bill a chance, but I feel bound to add that our misgivings are gravely aggravated by the information conveyed to us by the Minister to-day that the chairman of the Pigs Board and of the Bacon Board, which fall to be wiped out under this Bill, is to be resurrected for the purpose of making him chairman of the bacon commission which is to be responsible for the administration of this Bill in the future. I think, in that gentleman's own interest and in the interests of the industry, and in the interests of the success of this commission, the Minister should reconsider that decision, and consider gravely whether he cannot avail of this gentleman's services in some other capacity.

I want to see this Bill succeed. I want this commission to command the confidence it must have if it is to be a real success. I believe, with almost any other chairman the Minister could choose, combined with the rest of the personnel that he has in mind for this commission, it will command the confidence of the public. If the Minister does not care to substitute some other citizen for the person now proposed, I suggest to the Minister that he should appoint himself chairman of the board.

Or Deputy Dillon.

Who said that?

A decent, harmless poor creature up at the back there, who has no sense. I wish he would not interrupt me, because he vexes me, and I will be tempted to say something rude which I should regret as soon as I had said it. I urge on the Minister the desirability of making himself chairman, if necessary. It is not absolutely essential that he should attend and preside regularly. In the event of disagreement amongst the personnel of the commission, the matters could be referred to him, as they were referred to him before any boards or commissions were instituted. The old system was that the pig industry was administered by the Department of Agriculture, and if the high officials of the Department differed, or could not compose their views, they referred the matter to the Minister, who then made up his mind what was the wisest thing to do, and settled the matter in that way. I think that it is an infinitely preferable system to the one proposed by the Minister in his introductory remarks to-day. If he is reluctant to substitute some other individual for the person whom he now tells us he has in mind for the position of chairman of this board, I suggest that as a very good way out of his difficulty. I can assure him that if the board is so constituted it will secure the confidence of the public.

Might I ask the Minister one question? In the Money Resolution there is a reference to a levy. It is not usual for this House to delegate its authority to another body. This other body is going to impose the levy. Will the Minister give the House any information as to what is the amount of the levy?

At present the levy for general administrative purposes is 5d. per pig; that is between the two boards. I take it the 5d. will be continued. As well as that, the levy for insurance is 9d. per pig. The 9d. will be deducted from the producer in future, and the 5d. will be payable by the curer. There is also 5d. collected from the curer, which is passed on to me for the payment of veterinary staffs.

I understood the Minister to say on some occasion that it was not intended to make any further deductions from the price to be paid by the curer to the producer?

That is quite right, with the exception of insurance.

With the exception of the 9d?

If you are going to institute a new departure, why do you not include the 9d. in the moneys to be paid by the curer, and allow him that in the fixed price for pigs?

It does not make a lot of difference.

It will make this difference, that the ordinary, simple farmer if he is told the price for his pigs is £4 a cwt. and his pig weighs 1½ cwts., knows he is entitled to £6, but if there are all sorts of figures at the foot of his account showing deductions and cross deductions it immediately becomes more difficult for him to check up on it.

You must remember that the insurance fund is for the benefit of the farmer. Before this came in the farmer was cut by the curer very often when the pig proved to be tubercular.

If, under the old system, the curer bought a pig in the open market, he had to stand the whole lot.

I take it that as far as 9d. is concerned it will be the pig buyers who will pay that?

The curers send it on, when they are sending the cheque to the producer.

That is where there is a direct contract between the two, but I have in mind where there is a big dealer.

If I send pigs to a curer at present I get a cheque for so much and there is 1/3 per pig deducted. That includes the insurance fund, the 5d. for the Department of Agriculture and 1d. which is a relic of an old order. In future that will be 9d. instead of 1/3.

This is the third attempt within recent years to produce legislation for the purpose of improving the pig and bacon trade. I am sure everybody in the House, irrespective of political views, is hopeful that this legislation will have a full measure of success and will achieve a satisfactory result. One is rather inclined to look askance at the Bill, at least from some aspects of it. For example, there is the personnel of the commission, the members of which are going to be vested with extraordinary powers in order to deal with the trade as it affects pig rearing and bacon curing. On the initiation of the discussion this evening, Deputies showed how jealous they were in regard to protecting their procedure. I wonder are they as anxious to protect the powers of the Dáil in relation to the powers that are being given to the members of the commission?

I cannot see anything in the Bill but dictatorial powers that are to be handed to the three persons constituting the commission. I do not see why the Minister would not get the same results from his commission and still make them subject to the control of this House. I do not see why the activities of this commission should not be made the subject of debate in this House. They will make an annual report and, presumably, that will be tabled. I suggest that in addition to their annual report being tabled, their orders, which are of considerable importance, ought also to be tabled. Their revenue account and their balance sheet ought particularly to be tabled and made available for discussion in the House. This is really a national question. If we cannot produce pigs on a much larger scale than we have been producing them, then we will have to admit that we are a failure as an agricultural nation.

This subject is of very wide importance. I object especially to the handing of these extreme powers to these three persons. I suggest, incidentally, that the number ought to be augmented. The joint functions of the Pigs and Bacon Boards are now to be merged and will come under the control of this commission. Is there any reason why the representation formerly given to the pig rearing and the bacon curing sides should not still be reflected in this commission? I do not think it would affect the operations of the commission in the least, but it would help to inspire confidence among the pig rearers and the consumers who, by the way, have a very big interest indeed in this matter. I am sure the Minister could get a very representative man to look after the interests of the consumers and it would be a big step forward in promoting that feeling of confidence for which we have been so long looking.

The 1935 Act was introduced for the purpose of increasing the confidence of the farmers, the pig producers, and to assure them of a reasonable return for their pigs. There were general complaints when prices soared and, unfortunately, there were not adequate numbers of pigs available. When prices slumped the number of sows decreased. There was no balance maintained between the rising and falling of the prices and the maintenance of the pig population. As a matter of fact, we still find that there is a decrease in the pig population. We have not succeeded in remedying that situation so far. Efforts have been made to supply breeding sows throughout the country, but I suggest that the provision of sows will be negatived if this Bill does not succeed in getting the benediction, the confidence, of the people mainly concerned.

I am suggesting in the best interests of the industry that the Minister should take steps to see that the activities of this commission will be brought under review in this Parliament and will be made available for discussion by the people's representatives. I have discussed the matter with several people and I find this note of alarm, that practically limitless powers are given to the members of this commission, and there is to be no opportunity of hauling them over the coals and examining into their activities.

Deputy Dillon has referred here to a matter on which I feel rather strongly. We have been dealing at various times with this question of pig production and bacon curing. I think we went rather too far to one side of the picture. There were long debates here during the course of the legislation relating to pigs and bacon, and I suggest that the discussions did more to shatter public confidence than anything that could have been achieved by the various boards established subsequently. We had it bandied about in the House that the bacon curers were robbers and that the pig buyers were robbers. Somehow, before we had any of this legislation, the pig trade used to get on fairly well without any interference of any kind, and I think it came badly from Deputies in this House to make remarks of the type I have indicated about the people engaged in this important trade.

Deputy Dillon went on to refer to fairs and markets in his own portion of the country. I have spent a lot of time travelling through the West of Ireland and I think I am pretty conversant with the fairs and markets over a big portion of Connaught. I can say that, in my opinion, there has not been as much satisfaction given to the pig producers in that section of the country within recent times as in the period when they had only the pig buyers to deal with. Notwithstanding all that we have done in the way of legislation, that is the feeling there. The spirit of competition is taken away from the people.

I heard the Minister saying that the production quota will be suspended or annulled and the home sales sub-quota is being wiped out. I take it that the export quota is going to be increased. If you are doing away with the production quota and allowing one other quota to remain, what is going to be the fate of the home consumers? Since the start of the war it has been practically impossible for people to get hard salt bacon. They cannot secure what they require of that commodity. No satisfactory reason has been given. The fact remains that the wholesalers dealing with this particular brand, which is used largely in country homesteads, cannot get supplies; they can get only the mild-cured bacon, which is of little use to them, as it would be rotten before they would get to the end of it. I and other Deputies have been trying to get an explanation why the hard-cured bacon, which was sold regularly without any difficulty up to September, could not be procured in reasonable quantities afterwards. In some weeks it could not be got at all. If we are going to have the production quota suspended or wiped out, and the home sales quota abolished, is there any guarantee that the curers will not do just what they like and export it all?

There will be restrictions in that connection.

I was anxious to hear that. We can often get excuses why such things happen, but we had our own ideas why we could not get the hard salt bacon. I am anxious to see that the home consumers will be entitled to obtain the particular kind of bacon that they want before the export market is served. If that defect is to persist I can see that it is going to have a very serious effect upon the killings quota in the factories, because the Irish farmer will have his hard salt anyhow, and you will have thousands of unlicensed killers killing their own pigs to produce their own bacon, and it will be very hard to blame them. You will have your inspectors trying to trace them, but I think a man is entitled to kill his own pig, and he may kill one for his neighbours and for his first cousin as well. There is real danger. It has happened to a certain extent already in country districts.

Mr. Brennan

Was it not all right?

Perfectly right, and they will continue to do it in increasing numbers if some step is not taken to see that the home sales quota, both of hard and mild cured, would be made available to the people before the export quota is attempted to be filled. Probably competition will regulate that, as we have been told, but I think we ought to make sure to get the first of the bacon in this country. I hope the Minister will see that when the home sales quota is abolished something will be put in its place to secure that there will be sufficient bacon here, and that we will not be left in a mess, as we were in the previous war, when there was a rush to meet outside demands. I hope that will not happen again.

I wish to refer back to my original point—and it is the principle of the Bill I am concerned with. A good deal of it can be amended in Committee. I would suggest to the Minister that he would be doing a good day's work for this Bill and its future success, and he would inspire more confidence throughout the country as a whole by augmenting that commission and definitely bringing them under the control of this House and making their activities available for discussion by the members of this House.

Mr. Brennan

While it is pleasant to be at the funeral of the two last boards, I am sceptical of what we are going to put in their place. I think Deputy Keyes has touched upon a point that is very important, a point upon which I want to speak. During the lifetime of the two last boards we had less pigs in the country; we had dearer bacon in the country; less profit on pigs in the country, and less bacon consumed in the country. Consequently, there must have been something radically wrong with those two boards. We are now finishing off those two boards and putting back something in their place. This Bill does not deal with the personnel of the board, or lay down who is going to conduct the proceedings. It simply sets up a board, and we do not know who is going to be on it. As a matter of fact, the people who may be on the board to-morrow may not be the people who will be on the board the day after, or next year. Therefore, we are here to deal with a commission outside entirely the personnel of the people who are going to run it.

I am not at all convinced that a board is necessary at all. I would like the Minister to tell us why it is necessary. Perhaps it is. Perhaps it is my fault that I cannot see the necessity for it. After all, we have a Department of Agriculture here which has increased its staff enormously within the last few years, even though agricultural production has not increased, but has gone down. I certainly, with Deputy Keyes, think—and we have a very good headline to go on, the headline of the Banking Commission Report—that a board of this type ought not be set up outside the authority of this House, to run the people's business with our money, if you like, or at least with our consent and with our authority, and on the money of the people which they take out of the pigs. That is the position. Is there any reason why we should do that? I would much prefer that the Minister and his Department would be responsible for the whole transaction. I would then be in a position to stand up in this House, put the Minister a question, say, on the matter raised by Deputy Dillon a while ago, that is, the question of the large fat pigs in this country that come in at this month of the year and at no other time. I could ask the Minister if he was satisfied that certain quotas should have been given and were not given. As things stand under this Bill, I will be debarred from doing that. I hope the Minister will tell us exactly why, in his opinion, it is necessary to set up a board. Before ever we had a board we may have had a certain amount of disorganisation in pig production, but we had more pigs than we have to-day; we had cheaper bacon for the people, and we had more profit out of the pigs. During the lifetime of the control we have had less profit and less bacon consumed, and we have had less pigs. Is there any hope that this Bill is going to wipe out all these defects? I am afraid there is not. In the first place, we have a continuation of those levies. Of course, you cannot run a board without money. I entirely agree.

There must be certain people, a chairman, two ordinary members, a secretary and a staff. They are all going to be paid, presumably, by the pig producers of this country. At the present time this House is making very good provision for the running of the Department of Agriculture. There has been a very large increase in the estimates for that particular Department and, apparently, when something like this crops up, the people who had been trained in that Department for years and who ought to be the technical advisers and the watch-dogs for the farmers of this country are not able to do the job without passing on the baby to someone else, to people in a sheltered position, people who cannot be brought to book in this House. I do not agree with that, and I hope the Minister will tell us why it is necessary. Latterly it has become the practice, both here and possibly in other countries, to pass on this type of thing into the control of people who are not directly responsible to Parliament. I think that is bad. Unless the Minister is able to satisfy me at least that there is very good reason for the present situation and for the present Bill in that respect I will certainly have less confidence in the Minister's ability to do something for the pig industry of this country than I have at the present time. I think it is a matter that ought to be considered very seriously.

Deputy Dillon raised the matter of heavy bacon pigs. I want to assure the Minister that I had personal experience of that the day before yesterday. I would impress upon the Minister that any person who understands the way pigs are reared by the small farmers in this country will realise at once that there is just one period of, say, a month and a half, at this time of the year, in which the output of heavy pigs is possibly double, treble, or quadruple what it is at any other time of the year. The reason for that is that bonhams that are bought over in the Spring and that are let run over to late Spring and Summer are fattened now with the potatoes that are being dug now and you have all these pigs on the market. If the Pig Buyers' Association can assure us—and I think they can—that the price they can afford to pay for these pigs is something in the neighbourhood of from 15/- to 20/- per pig more than can be got at home, I think it is manifestly unfair that that would be denied to the producers.

There is another point in regard to that matter to which I would like to draw the Minister's attention. An attempt was being made here for some years past to standardise Irish bacon. It was a very laudable effort, very praiseworthy, which I think ought to be continued, and I think that every step ought to be taken to see that there is no interference with it. We have been endeavouring to standardise bacon for export. I think that is an absolute necessity if we are going to hold even what we have in the outside markets. If, through lack of licences for the export of heavy fat pigs, we are going to ensure that those heavy fat pigs must pass into our bacon factories, we are immediately going to have direct interference with standardisation and, although in war time you will possibly get rid of everything you can produce, at the same time you ought to take the long view and if you can get rid of a very fat pig on foot and get rid of it at a better price than it will fetch in the bacon factories, then you ought to get rid of it and not interfere with your attempt at standardisation. It would be a huge mistake.

The worst feature of the Bill to my mind is that there is a certain carryover in it with regard to the powers of the chairman of the board. I am not interested in the person who is going to be chairman. I have heard a lot of adverse criticism of the capabilities of the chairman, but I have nothing to say to that. I think, however, that that carry-over enables the chairman coming in, no matter who he is, to make certain decisions which possibly would not be in the interests of the pig industry. I think that is a very serious matter. What I would like to see would be the Minister wiping out the two boards completely, as he has done, coming to this House and telling us: "I have wiped out the whole thing; I have taken control of the Stabilisation Fund and whatever other funds there are; we are now in the position in which we were before there was any control established", and then making a case for a new board if he thought fit. This kind of carryover is going to have in the minds of the people of this country a certain taint, a certain smell, about it that I am afraid will bring about what Deputy Keyes fears, that is, a lack of confidence. If you are not able to establish confidence you are not going to get the pigs.

The most essential thing in the whole matter is to establish that confidence which is necessary in order to have the pigs produced. It does not matter what machinery you put up with regard to the production of bacon in this country, or the standardisation of bacon, or how you try to control it, the real test, the acid test, of its success will be the number of pigs produced. Tested on that basis, control up to the present has been a complete failure— worse than a failure. We would be much better off if we never had it. Are we satisfied that this is going to give us a better position? Personally I am not satisfied. I would prefer to see the Minister come to the House and say he had finished with the whole matter of control and then, if necessary, making a case for a new control of a different type.

There is another matter I should like to put up to the Minister and which has been mentioned to me by people down the country. If we are going to have control of this nature, irrespective of who does the controlling—and I submit that certain control is necessary; that it would be most undesirable if all our pigs were allowed to be bought on foot and shipped out of the country to the detriment of the bacon factories; nobody wants that—but if we are going to have control, and if we are going to have a stabilisation fund, let us take the long view of that.

There is no use in fixing a price, say, in August and saying that that price is going to operate for three months. That is not any good to the pig feeders; at least it will not induce greater production. What would induce greater production, according to most people in this country—I am not so convinced of it myself—would be that the price would be fixed so far ahead that the man who would buy young pigs would be sure that at the end of, say, four months, when he was turning them out, the price would still remain. But the peculiarity of the situation is that in all live stock rearing, and more particularly in reference to pigs, there is just that element of gamble. After all, when we did not have any fixed price, did not know what we were going to get when we sold, we reared more pigs than are reared to-day. The man who is engaged in pig feeding and who buys two, ten, or 20 pigs, says "At the end of four months I can estimate that I will get £5 for each of these, but I will get no more." If, on the other hand, it is an open gamble, he may look forward to getting £6; and even if he only gets £4 15s., you may have more pigs. There is that element in it and always has been.

I ask the Minister to let the House know, because we have a right to know it, to what extent will these levies bear upon the pig producers. What will the salary of the chairman be; what will the salaries of the two ordinary members be; and what will be the all-in cost of the staff? We in this House apparently are not going to pay these, because there is a section in the Bill which sets out that certain moneys can be allocated and will be allocated for that purpose out of these funds. I hope the Minister will tell me why he is convinced that it is necessary to take this matter out of his hands and out of the hands of his Department and put it into the control of a board which is not to be responsible to this House.

I wish to draw attention to one particular matter that I referred to by way of interruption. I want to say at the outset that I think the Minister was rather unfortunate in the period during which the previous Bills were operated; unfortunate to the extent that the pig population fell during that particular time. The people were driven out of production in that particular period and that is all being attributed now to the operation of the two previous Bills—the 1935 Bill and the 1937 Bill. I do not hold any brief for the curers. I think my previous action in this House in disclosing the position for the first time, being the pioneer in disclosing the position, is sufficient proof of that.

I am not going to say that the report of the commission was exactly right, but anyway it disclosed beyond all doubt that the curers made profits they otherwise would not have made. I think everyone is safe in saying that they made profits they otherwise would not have made or could not have made. But the fact remains that the producers of pigs in this country got more for their pigs during that period, consistently got more, than the European market or the world market would have given them. The proof of that is shown by the figures the Minister read out to-night, that every penny of the hypothetical price was paid to exporters out of the home market. The price outside the country must have been less than that paid inside it. Therefore the producer, if a fair division between profits and loss could be made, was getting a better and a leveller price than he would have got if these Acts had not been on the Statute Book. He got more money, and the proof is in the figures paid out for bacon exported.

Mr. Brennan

They do not show that. That does not prove the point.

Deputy Brennan's contention would be perfectly correct if we were dealing with a normal period. We are not dealing with a normal period, but with the period of the economic war, when people were driven out of production by action of the Government, which made them too poor to feed pigs, and which deprived them of credit. The position is the same to-day. I am certain that you will not have a response, no matter what is done under this Bill, unless the capacity to produce pigs, and the credit of the people, so that they can buy foodstuffs, is restored. Producers must have means or credit. They have neither at the moment. It is easy to procure a sow at a cost ranging from 50/- to 25/- when young. It is quite a different matter to buy food for the sow and litter or to get credit. There is where the difficulty arises. There is no use sailing under false colours in a matter like this. It is better to deal with hard facts. The Act was not at fault. The fault will not be with this Bill. I want to deal with a question that does not seem to be within the knowledge of the Minister, concerning the special quotas. I am advised that the special quotas are in the neighbourhood of 8,000 cwts. per month, amounting, roughly, to 50,000 pigs. As far as we know that was distributed principally between Claremorris, Castlebar and smaller factories in the north. One factory in County Monaghan, of which Deputy Ward was a director, got a very much larger share of the special quota than it was entitled to, on past performance.

The Deputy should not refer to the private business connections of fellow-Deputies.

The Deputy is in a position to correct me if I am wrong. The House will see that it would be very unfair to southern curers if the allocation of the special quotas was made permanent. Although definite information is lacking it appears that these special export quotas have now been abolished theoretically. That is what the Minister said. I would like to know if they are abolished for all time. The firms that have been accustomed to enjoying them are all in the northern part of Éire, will continue to enjoy them, by an increase of an equivalent amount in their percentages of the total export quota. In other words, the advantages which they received from the special export quotas during the last few years are now being made permanent. The Minister's words seem to raise a doubt in my mind. I do not think he meant to do so. As we know, many representations have been made to the Department and to the Minister as to the injustice of these special quotas being continued so long. Any surplus of pigs that has existed in recent years has certainly not been in the northern part of Éire. In fact, on several occasions firms getting special export quotas had to buy in southern fairs the pigs to fill them. It is difficult to obtain exact figures, but it would appear that about 50,000 pigs per annum, which should be killed by curers in the south and midlands, are actually killed by firms receiving the special export quotas. The effect of this upon the costings of the individual firms and on the local labour problem can easily be seen. That is the history of the whole matter from the beginning.

Several years ago producers in Donegal area were unable to market their pigs in the usual manner owing to special circumstances. To meet the difficulty, the Department withdrew a certain proportion of the British quota from the total and allotted it to certain firms bordering on the Donegal area, entailing a corresponding allotment of production. This, at the time, was a necessary step, and no objection was raised by other curers, whose geographical position did not permit them handling the pigs and carcases in question. The surplus, however, did not persist very long, but shifted within a year to the South of Ireland and to County Cork in particular. It has persisted ever since. When it was seen by the main body of curers that the Donegal surplus no longer existed, representations were made to the Department that the special quota, which was granted under special circumstances, and to remedy a specific disability, should be withdrawn and absorbed in the general quota.

The Department has consistently refused the request of the vast majority of the licensees, and this refusal has been of the utmost disadvantage to southern producers, labour and curers. Everyone connected with the trade knows that of late years County Cork, from which Limerick, Tralee and Waterford draw portion of their normal supplies, has been far and away the most prolific area for the production of pigs, yet the curing centre itself gets no advantage from this fact, as regards production. Actually large quantities of Cork pigs have to be sent up country in order that certain curers may be able to fill a production quota which was granted to them to absorb a surplus in Donegal, a surplus that has long since vanished. Cork producers have had to suffer on innumerable occasions the hardship of having their pigs refused by local factories, and of losing from 3/- to 5/- per pig, according to the destination to which the pigs are sent. Cork labour is also affected, as it naturally follows that the less pigs killed there the less labour is employed and money distributed.

We know that at the inception of the 1935 Act advantage was taken by a certain curer—because of his knowledge of what was going to happen, and of his connection within the inner circle—who had been a very moderate operator in 1931, 1932 and 1933. He went and bought right, left and centre in 1934. Because of the information he had he gambled every penny, and every bit of credit he could get, and got a quota passed upon that gamble which he has been enjoying ever since. If there was ever a scandal in connection with the whole procedure that was a scandal. That curer was one who got a special privilege in addition out of the Donegal surplus. We want that ended. We want no special quotas. We want a general quota and a fair division made. I welcome the Bill for some of the reasons mentioned by Deputy Dillon and by Deputy Brennan. It ends past procedure. I ask the Minister seriously to see that any commission or authority that is going to handle this question will not be outside the jurisdiction of this House. If the Minister is going to do all these things on his own responsibility, then I think public representatives should have the right to criticise and to demand a reply from the responsible Minister.

As to the special quotas, the Minister ought to make it definite in the final stages, as he indicated in a previous statement, that they are going to disappear, and that there should be no favouritism or privilege for people playing on the inside strings. They have got more than enough during the last four or five years and should be satisfied. They have been sufficiently compensated for any services they rendered, either in money or in kind.

I do not want to delay the House too long, but at the same time I should like to say that I could agree with Deputy Dillon on some of the things he said. However, there is one thing upon which I could not agree with him, and that is in connection with the extraordinary attack he made on the chairman of the Pigs Marketing Board. The next thing Deputy Dillon said was that the House should have control in these matters, and Deputy Gorey also followed along those lines; but I think that Deputy Dillon gave us an example of what would happen if this House had complete control. The question you have to consider is: what man could you get, in such circumstances, who could take complete control and assume all the responsibilities in connection with such a case? Such a person would have to take decisions, some of which might not be satisfactory to all the members of the House, or even to all Parties in this House. Nevertheless, these decisions would have to be taken. Now, I am sure that certain rules were laid down for the particular chairman concerned to follow, and I am quite sure that he followed out these rules to the exact letter of the law. There is another thing, however, about which I am not quite so satisfied, and that is that a commissioner—and every one of us has had experience of commissions —must have somewhat more power than, say, the chairman of a board. It might be extremely useful for him to have that power, but I am not so much concerned with that as with other things, with which I should like the Minister to agree, if it is possible for him to do so. Most of us lament the decay of the rural towns, and I am quite sure that farmers, in one way or another, have suffered certain losses and feel certain grievances as a result of the increasing decay of these rural towns. Now, there are many towns that I know very well—particularly in my own constituency—in connection with which that decay could be attributed, very largely, to the decay in pig-feeding and pig production. It is my opinion that what would serve the bulk of the farmers and satisfy them would be that, no matter what kind of board you set up, or whether the body you set up is composed of commissioners or otherwise, the farmers could buy or sell these pigs either in the local town or as near as possible to the nearest town, and be paid for their pigs, either on a dead-weight or a live-weight basis, and then let the purchasers, whether they be the factories or other people, wrangle among themselves as to the subsidies and so on that are to be paid—all these things, with regard to subsidies and so on, that puzzle the farmers. I think it would be of great advantage to do that, and to put the onus on the other people of puzzling out these matters.

What are you drawing your money for?

Well, perhaps it is for that, but sometimes one has got to get near the earth when you have to explain all these things. However, I believe that that would encourage to a great extent the raising of pigs. Undoubtedly, the Department has done a great deal towards the organisation of production, but we have passed quite a number of Acts here—and I think this is another of them—which have not very much reference to the producer at all, and I think that what I have suggested is something that would help the producer. It would mean going back to something that existed before any of these boards or commissions were introduced, and I believe it would give what the Deputy from Limerick suggested, and that is confidence to a great number of these people. That is a point that should be considered. One of the things that farmers object to is having to part with their property, such as their livestock, and so on, and then to have to wait for three or four days before they get their money. That leads to discontent, and it is quite possible that, before they get their money for one batch of pigs, they may want to buy another batch. I think that, if what I suggest were done, it would leave the farmer in a better position, and, possibly, it would leave Deputies in this House, and other people also, in a happier frame of mind. That would not entail the appointment of a commissioner or chairman of a board, and, if it were done, I do not think there would be so much to say to such a chairman or commissioner, even if you made him amenable to the House, or his decisions matters for discussion in the House; nor do I think that there would be so much to say to him; nor any necessity to repeat what Deputy Dillon repeated tonight—a statement which, to my mind, is extremely objectionable, since the man concerned is not here to defend himself. I am quite sure that that man did his duty according to the regulations with which he had to comply.

When we first had the intimation that the first Bill connected with this matter was to be repealed or amended, and that the board that had control of the operations of the pig industry in this country was to be abolished, I think that most people who had any connection with pig production in this country began to breathe freely. I am not going to make any attack whatever on anybody connected with that board, from the chairman down to the lowest-paid official. The operations of that board pleased very few people connected with pig production, but the fact that they did not please these people was not altogether the fault of the directors or officials of the board. The fault was inherent in the Bill. Now, there has been a tendency in this House, and there is a tendency even today, to take the word of somebody who says that, even though such-and-such a thing is not in the Bill, it will probably take place, or that, even though something objectionable is in the Bill, it will not be operated in the same manner as it appears in the Bill. The difficulty with regard to this matter was that certain sections were not operated because they could not have been operated, since the powers contained in the Bill did not allow them to be operated.

Previous to the advent of that Bill, there were three different sections of the community engaged in, or trading in, the pig industry in this country. We had the producer, we had what we might call the ordinary pig dealer, and we had the factory buyers or agents— all trading in pigs. The last Bill eliminated one particular member of that trio from the position of a trader. I am alluding to the bacon curers. As a result of the last Bill, they were no longer traders. There is a gamble in trading, as somebody stated a few moments ago, but these people were relieved from that gamble, and when you make a profit from the produce of any particular article a certainty, it ceases to be trading. There was no question of trading in the operations of the bacon curers during the last few years. They bought pigs from the farmers—as a matter of fact, they did not buy them, they took them—and they were allowed to pay the farmers whatever they liked to pay them, having made allowances for their own expenses and a certain profit for themselves; and they themselves were the only makers of the profit. That was what was wrong with the first Bill. It was a Bill that was designed—I do not say that it was deliberately designed— but whether it was deliberately or accidentally designed, its effect was to favour one section of the people who were engaged in the production of pigs in this country. It could not succeed, and it did not succeed. It pleased nobody, and I think every section is pleased that it has been suspended or ended. The only thing I regret is that, having written R.I.P. with regard to the operations under the other Bill, we are now going to resurrect them in the Bill succeeding it.

I do not see anything in this Bill which would cause any of us to enthuse over it. If the interests of the producer were neglected under the previous Bill, there is very little in this to favour him. I do not propose to refer to the composition of the commission in this Bill. It is immaterial to me who they are, but what matters to me is the powers to be given to them. I see nothing in the Bill which will further the interests of the producer, and I see nothing in it which will further the interests of the second person of the three originally engaged in the pig trade, the ordinary pig buyer. It is, therefore, fairly obvious to me at least that it will continue to operate in favour of the third party to the transaction, the factory buyer.

The suggestion was made that there should be control of the industry in this House, and that is a suggestion with which I heartily agree. What I would suggest would be, not the introduction of a Bill such as this, or any other Bill, but that the Minister should make himself and his Department responsible for whatever action it was necessary to take, now or in the future, with regard to the pig industry, and the less interference with it the better, to my mind. It may be that changes in other countries may necessitate some little control, one way or the other, over this or any other industry, but if there is, the person responsible ought to be the Minister in charge of the particular Department, and for the pig industry, the Minister for Agriculture certainly ought to be the person responsible. I have every confidence that if the House chose to make the Minister and his Department the persons responsible for the industry, the industry would not suffer, and I am quite satisfied that, under the control of the Minister and his Department, the best would be done for the industry that could be done. They would be subject to the criticism of their own Party, of our Party and other Parties in the House, and, naturally, their desire would be to make the best of it.

Some people seem to think that we could not get on without control, or without the introduction of some such Bill as this; but remember that the pig industry existed long before there was any control of the industry. We had a greater number of pigs in this country years ago than now, and, somehow or other, they managed to be marketed. At one period, not very far distant in our history, we had not only considerably more pigs reared, consumed and exported, but we actually brought in thousands of other pigs in the form of bacon. And there was no great difficulty in the operation. There were, of course, as in all trades, vicissitudes; there were rises and falls of markets. Sometimes there was a glut in the export market which had to be met in some way. There had to be arrangements between different buyers as to curtailing operations in one market or the other. The same thing happens in the cattle trade, but all these difficulties were got over by good business men. I, for one, am sorry that I cannot see anything in favour of the Bill.

The Minister said that we may come to the day when we will have rationalisation of the industry. Rationalisation means nationalisation, and I hope that we will never arrive at the point at which this great industry will have to be nationalised. This is almost as great an evil as nationalisation, because, if it does not go the whole hog, it places the greater portion of any profit there is in this industry in the hands of a limited number of people. There are one or two points in the Bill, the Minister said, which one might praise a little. There is to be a suspension, rather than an abandonment, of the production quota. We are told that it will not be operated in the future, but that it will be suspended to see how we get on. Probably in six or seven months' time, when the chief gainers, the third party I mentioned, say that the quota could not operate successfully, it will be abandoned. If it is ever abandoned, it will not be at the instigation of the producers. There are one or two other things promised us verbally, but which are not in the Bill. So far as what is in the Bill is concerned, I cannot, as I say, see anything over which I, or the country generally, would enthuse. It is an attempt to amend a Bill which has been in operation for two or three years, and which failed lamentably. The only thing I regret is that, instead of amending it, it does not extinguish it altogether.

I should like to be assured by the Minister that this extra quota will be restored to those who had it for such a considerable time, or that the production quota will be removed. I think it rather unfair to the producer of pigs that pigs produced in a remote part of County Cork should be sent to Monaghan factory. I am informed, whether rightly or wrongly, that it costs nearly 5/- per pig to transport them that distance. The Cork factories are quite capable of dealing with these pigs, if they were left to manufacture the bacon products, and I do hope that the production quota will be abolished, or if not, that the extra quota taken from the Cork curers will be restored to them, because they were able to deal with the pigs, and especially pigs produced in County Cork.

I could not agree with Deputy O'Reilly in his objections to the commission being under the control of the Dáil. We have experience of the operations of two boards, the Sugar Board and the Electricity Supply Board. When questions were put here recently to the Minister for Industry and Commerce, asking him to give certain information that should be in the hands of the Deputies of this House, we were definitely informed that we would not get it—in other words, that they had a definite method of doing their business and would not be subject to any criticism from this House. I am quite opposed to the Bill if that is going to be insisted on, in so far as bacon is concerned. When they issue annual reports, these reports should be subject to debate in the Dáil. Deputy O'Reilly mentioned that a while ago. If the chairman were subject to this House, I cannot see what he would be afraid of in the criticism of this House. If any of the Ministers make an order, it is open to this House to revoke the order in the course of some time.

I hope the Minister will agree that this commission be subject to the criticism of the Dáil, as—like some of the previous speakers—I have been told by pig producers of the unfair treatment that was meted out to them by the last Bacon Boards. When they brought pigs to certain factories they were told there that they could not take them that day. The result was they would have to take them home. But before they took them from the city they were sold to pig buyers and these pig buyers took the pigs out of the creels where the farmers had them and placed them in the same factory, where they had been refused three or four hours before. When things like that happen and producers are subject to that kind of treatment, it is very desirable that the operations of a commission such as this, composed of three men over the whole industry, should be open to discussion. If the Minister appoints—as he is going to appoint— these three men, who are to have complete control over the industry, for their functions are to look after the production of the bacon side of it, the consumers of the bacon products and the other aspects of the industry, I think there is nothing objectionable in demanding that the Dáil should have an opportunity of discussing their annual reports when they are submitted; and I hope the Minister will agree to that on the Second Reading of the Bill.

This is a serious Bill and I am glad it is being taken seriously and considered seriously by this House. Everybody will acknowledge that the only way to enable the people of this country to get through the present economic crisis and to meet the increasing demands of the national Exchequer for revenue, and generally even to maintain their present standard of living, is to increase agricultural output in certain directions. One of the avenues open to us to increase agricultural production is in the pig producing industry. Therefore, it should be the first duty of the Government and of this House to consider very seriously the best means of achieving that result and of bringing about a very substantial increase in pig production and bacon production.

We have had the sad experience that the attempts made in the past few years to organise this industry and increase production have not been successful. We have the fact that pig production has very seriously declined. The number of pigs in this country decreased by over 100,000. That deplorable state of affairs is due to many factors. It is due, of course, to the interference with the old system of pig feeding in various districts where farmers depended upon maize meal food-stuffs. It is due also to the fact that for many reasons there has been a serious decline in the acreage under potatoes. In many parts of the country the pig producing industry and the potato-growing industry have always gone hand in hand, and with a decline in the potato-growing industry there has been a very marked decline in the pig-raising industry. I think any effective step to increase pig raising must go hand-in-hand with a very serious attempt to increase the acreage under the potato crop here.

I do not see any reason why, when the Government have taken steps to organise this industry and set up the Bacon Commission and so forth, they should not at the same time take adequate measures to increase the acreage under potatoes and correlate the two industries. It might be possible to increase credit facilities for farmers to enable them to put an increased acreage under potatoes. It might be possible to provide those credit facilities in the same way as credit facilities for sows for breeding purposes have been provided through the Bacon Marketing Board. It is desirable also to encourage farmers to increase the number of sows. In this connection I think we cannot attach all the blame to the Government. It is certainly the fact that pig breeding has not been as successful over a number of years as it was heretofore.

Perhaps the Minister could give us some information on this subject. He has probably some information at his disposal as to the results which were obtained from sows distributed by the Bacon Marketing Board and as to the results which were obtained from that distribution scheme. As far as I am aware, a very large number of those sows proved unproductive: they were unhealthy and in some cases died. I would be glad if the Minister could give some information as to the position in regard to those sows as it would throw some light on the position of the industry.

They were fattened and killed, of course.

It may be possible, but it is rather an extraordinary thing that farmers are finding it almost impossible to keep sows in production at the present time. It may be due, perhaps, to the changes in the various breeds of sows and pigs which have been introduced, or to some other cause; but it is certainly true that sows have not been as productive as in the past. There is absolutely no possibility of increasing pig production in this country unless the pig producer is assured of a fair, reasonable and adequate price for pigs when sent to the market. These prices must bear a relation to the cost of production and to the cost of feeding stuffs, and unless they do it is absolutely futile to pass legislation here and set up various boards and incur expense in trying to organise the industry. The farmers cannot feed and raise pigs at a loss. No matter what it may cost, no matter what expense or risk may be entailed, the farmer must be assured of a fair price. That price must be fixed considerably in advance—and very considerably in advance—so as to enable farmers to go into production and make the necessary provision. As I have said, the farmer who wishes to go into production must be assured of a price very much in advance, so that he would be able to increase his acreage under various crops which would be suitable for feeding stuffs.

The pig-raising industry cannot be put on a sound and permanent basis unless the main ration for the feeding and raising of pigs is home-produced. At all times there is a certain amount of uncertainty in relation to imported feeding stuffs. Therefore, it is absolutely necessary, no matter what risk may be incurred by the State or by any organisation set up by the State, that the producer be guaranteed a price at least one year in advance, so that production can be undertaken on a businesslike basis and with an assurance of reasonable profit. We have a great variety of types of soil. In many counties we have soil absolutely unsuited to the growing of cash crops for which there are guaranteed prices. We have large areas in which farmers cannot grow successfully either beet or wheat, and there is no future for farmers in such areas if they want to continue to get the utmost return from their land and to cultivate the largest possible area. There is no prospect for them unless there is a guaranteed price for the finished product—pigs and poultry, but particularly pigs. Those farmers who are on inferior land, consisting of bogs and mountains, cannot grow beet or wheat successfully, and they should be given some chance to recoup themselves for the assistance they are compelled to give to farmers in the better districts. They should be given some means of obtaining a return for their labour and enterprise in cultivating their land. Therefore, there is no reason why a farmer who puts his land into cultivation and grows a crop of potatoes and oats, which he feeds to live stock, should not be guaranteed as good a return for his labour as the farmer who grows beet. That is the first duty of the Government, and it is a duty they should not seek to side-step. No matter what it cost the community, they should see that the farmer engaged in pig production is assured of a reasonable price for his product.

It is suggested that the bacon-curing industry should be rationalised. I take it that rationalisation would mean dispensing with the smaller units of production—the closing down of the smaller bacon curing factories. I think that that would not in any circumstances be justifiable. It would lead to monopolies and, perhaps, to profiteering and would put too great a measure of control in the hands of a few people. The small bacon-curers have, in many cases, successfully built up their industries and given satisfaction both to the consumers of bacon and to the producers of pigs. Under no circumstances should their industry be interfered with.

I am aware that certain small curers have had their quotas drastically reduced during the past couple of years and I hope that, when this Bill comes into operation, they will get an opportunity of increasing production. There is also the case of the very small bacon curers who were put out of production completely with the passing of the other Acts and who received no compensation whatever for the loss of their means of livelihood. I hope the Minister will find some means of reviewing their case and of having justice done to them.

I understand that this legislation is based on the recommendation of the Agricultural Commission. I wish to point out to the Minister that it would hardly be wise to follow out the recommendations of that commission in all respects. One of the recommendations of the commission is that we should establish co-operative pig-fat-tening stations. Apparently, it is considered by that commission that, when individual farmers cannot fatten pigs profitably, a paid manager, working under a co-operative commission or society, would be able to do so. I do not think that that suggestion should be seriously considered and I hope the Minister will not be so foolish as seriously to consider it. It might have some advantages for the Minister in future in case it were necessary to requisition supplies of pigs for the purpose of breaking down a strike on the part of pig producers. It might be advantageous to the Minister to have a number of paid officials engaged in pig production who could be coerced, in the same way as creamery managers have been coerced, to provide supplies to the Minister for the purpose of "scabbing" upon the unfortunate producers and breaking down their demands for fair prices. I hope the Minister will not be so unjust as to adopt that scheme. I hold the view that the Minister for Agriculture is absolutely incapable of a mean or malicious act and I hope I shall never have to revise that opinion. I think that the House has treated the Minister rather well in connection with this Bill. So far, there has not been much hostile comment. It may come yet. The Minister should be thankful for that. I hope that, as a result of this measure and of the suggestion I have made, increased capital facilities will be afforded the farmers to enable them to increase the number of sows upon their farms and the acreage under potatoes. They should be enabled to carry out that increased production properly by intensive manuring and thus provide a foodstuff for their livestock. I hope these suggestions will be adopted by the Minister and that we shall have from this date a rapid increase in the number of pigs raised and fattened in this country. Before you can have that increase, you must have confidence restored in the agricultural industry. The agricultural producer must be given some reason to believe that he is not regarded by the authorities—the State, the Government and the various Departments—as a convict without licence.

I think if the Government take this matter into consideration and if they treat the farmer as an honest lawabiding citizen, who is endeavouring to do his best to increase the output of this country, to extend his industry and to help to save the country from economic bankruptcy, they will eventually secure his co-operation. We must remember that the people who are living on the land are the people on whom the nation has got to depend for its existence. I think the Minister for Industry and Commerce made that fact very clear at a recent meeting of the Dublin Chamber of Commerce when he pointed out the sacrifices which the farmers had been called upon to make during the past few years, not only because of the economic war against Great Britain, but also because they had to provide for the establishment of various industries. The farmers have borne that entire burden on their shoulders and apart from the need to increase agricultural production in various ways, it is the duty of the Government to take some steps to compensate the farmers for the enormous sacrifices they have made in the past and to help them back into profitable production in future. They can do that to a certain extent by means of this Bill. They can provide at least some help for farmers by enabling them to acquire an increased number of sows and to increase the production of foodstuffs on their farms. I ask the Minister to take immediate steps to go into that question and to provide credit facilities for farmers in these two directions, that is, to enable them to provide increased tillage and also to enable them to obtain sows in the speediest possible manner. I hope that the Minister will assure the farmer who goes into pig production to an extended degree in future and who is thereby co-operating with the Government in helping this country to tide over the present economic crisis, that he will get an adequate return for his industry, that the Government will guarantee him an adequate return for his enterprise and labour.

There are just a few matters to which I want to draw the Minister's attention arising out of Sections 9 and 30. My curiosity has been further aroused by the answer he gave to Deputy Cosgrave with regard to levies for the payment of the staff. I want to deal with those matters before I pass on to any general examination of the Bill. May I take it that when civil servants are allocated to this board under Section 30, they are still civil servants or do they cease to be civil servants when they take up service with the board?

That is under Section 9. They are still civil servants.

And the provision in the section is only intended to recoup the Minister for Finance for their salaries while they are serving with the commission?

That is quite right.

With regard to the answer which the Minister gave in reference to the levies that are collected for the veterinary staff, that is the Minister's veterinary staff, I take it?

Am I to take it that the veterinary staff in these factories are established officers?

They are.

Does that include the entire veterinary staff?

No; the veterinary staff attached to the bacon factories.

They are established?

The veterinary staff who are working actually in the bacon factories are established officers.

Are their assistants established?

Only the lay assistants.

These, of course, are details, but everybody here this evening has been talking from his own particular angle, and I want to know what the position of those who are going to do this work in future will be. Assume that you are taking over the officials of the two boards—the Bacon Board and the Pigs Marketing Board —and that you have lay assistants in your veterinary department and a new inspectorial staff. Assume that this commission exists for years under quasi-Government control, and that these men get married meanwhile. Are we to throw them out on the roadside and make no provision for them should the commission cease to function? I should like the Minister, when he is replying, to deal with that matter. Does he intend to make any provision for these people whom we are taking in here? I think that is worthy of the serious consideration of the House. There is a section here which says that the staff employed by the Pigs Marketing Board and the Bacon Marketing Board are to be taken over under this Bill, together with the lay staff employed in the veterinary department and the inspectorial staff. I think it is only just that when the House is taking this step we should see that ample provision is made for these men, and that they should not be thrown out on the roadside should this commission come to an end. They should be given some assurance that they will be protected against a calamity of that kind.

With regard to the general principle of the Bill, I am not fond of inquests. I am glad to see that the Minister is much more courteous this evening than he was when he came to the House with his last Bill, although I am not prepared to say that he was deliberately offensive on that occasion. When that Bill was mooted, I went down to my constituency at my own expense and travelled all over it in order to get information for myself, not through inspectors, of course. I was not able to afford that, but the Minister was. I came to the House equipped with such information as I was able to gather, and the Minister told me across the floor of the House that I did not know what I was talking about. This Bill proves that I did know what I was talking about, but let that pass. Inquests never brought a dead man back to life. The object now is to get this scheme going, and the only way to get it going is to pass the Bill in such a form that it will put the industry on its feet. I take it that one of the implications of the Bill is that the boards which have had charge of the industry for a number of years past are now to be destroyed.

Certain things have been said this evening with regard to members of the board. I am not going to say any hard things about them, but what I do suggest to the Minister is that he is introducing this Bill to abolish these two boards, the clear implication being that they failed in the duties that were entrusted to them. It follows from that, in my opinion, that if the commission to be set up under this Bill is to be a success, as well as for the reputation of the Minister, it is essential that everybody who has been associated at the top with these two boards should disappear. That is even necessary for the reputation of those men themselves. I am quite impersonal on this. Apparently the people immediately concerned in this industry were so disgusted that they pressed and urged the Minister to introduce this Bill. They coerced him to do it, and they did so because they were disgusted with the management of these two boards. If that be the mentality of those in the industry, it follows that if you bring into this commission any of those who were associated at the top with the old boards, you taint it at once and injure its prospects of success. That is my opinion for what it is worth, and I hope the Minister and the House will agree with me.

I was not present when the Minister moved the Second Reading of this Bill, but I understand he said that he proposed to take into this commission the chairman of these two boards. I do not want to say anything about that matter, but if the commission is to make a success of its work under this measure, then those who were tainted with such incompetence in the working of the old boards should not be brought in. As I have said, the curers and the producers in the industry coerced the Minister to introduce this Bill which abolishes the Bacon and Pigs Marketing Boards. If those associated with them are to be taken in now, in the manner of putting old wine in new bottles, then this commission will begin its work with psychological disadvantages at once. If the intention be to take in the chairman of the two boards that are being abolished, I would say to that man, if he asked me for my opinion: "Step out of this and have nothing to do with it." Surely there are plenty of other positions in which employment can be found for him.

With regard to my own constituency, I can say that the two boards that are being abolished were an abject failure. When the Principal Act was being put through the House four and a half years ago, I pointed out to the Minister a number of causes which I thought then would lead to the failure of the measure that he was piloting through. Of course, the Minister would not listen to me. According to him I did not know what I was talking about. I suppose, in the Minister's opinion, I did not know in what end of the pig the ring should be to keep it from tearing up the ground. I was so ignorant, in his view, that I did not know anything about the industry, and should not be in this House at all representing an agricultural industry. The Minister knew it all. I wonder where did he get his information. The Minister has learned a lot since then. It is a bad thing for anybody to be too dogmatic, no matter how old or young he is. We can all learn a little bit as we go along. This Bill, at any rate, proves that the Minister has learned a good deal in those four and a half years. For the sake of the industry, this commission will have my blessing. The old boards had my blessing in so far as there was any hope of their making a success of the work that was being given to them. But I thought at the time that they had not the essence of success in them. I said so at the time though I did not vote against the Bill.

This Bill is useless without pigs. The important thing is to get the machinery going which will lead to an immediate increase in the pig population of the country. When the Principal Act was before the House I told the Minister of the actual position that then existed, so far as the County Donegal was concerned. I made certain suggestions to him that I thought would remedy that situation, but I was told that I did not know what I was talking about. I suppose I am in the same position to-night, but still I am going to talk about it. I think the Minister is in a favourable position to-day to get an immediate increase in the pig population. Two things are strongly in his favour to achieve that. In the first place, he is abolishing the two boards set up under the old Act because, apparently, the producers and curers were dissatisfied with them. In the second place he is lucky by reason of the fact that this season there is an abundant crop of potatoes in the country for which there is otherwise a very poor price. On these two grounds the Minister is getting a very good start with his Bill. The people down the country are waiting anxiously for the Department or the commission that is to be set up to give them sows. Following the passage of this measure, the one thing necessary to make the object aimed at a success is to distribute an ample supply of sows throughout the country. There is ample and cheap feeding available. Our farmers have traditionally used potatoes for the raising of pigs, and, as I have said, there is an abundant crop of them available. However much we may condemn the muddling and incompetence that went on in the past we can all hope that under the new machinery that is being set up better results will follow. The important thing is, as I have said, to take steps to see that an adequate number of sows will be distributed. That should be done at once, because the young pigs propagated from these sows will only come to the market a considerable time after this commission begins to function. If that is attended to there is the hope that the producers of pigs will reap a larger benefit than they have secured at any time in the past.

There is one other matter to which I think the Minister should give immediate attention. In a way, it may be regarded as a small matter, perhaps, but apparently there is some block against the giving of licences to pig dealers to export heavy pigs. Anyone who knows anything about this industry knows that in Birmingham, Newcastle-on-Tyne and other Northern towns in England there is an abundant market for these heavy pigs. There is a complaint, and I do not know whether it is well-founded or not, that somebody is refusing to give licences for the export of heavy pigs. I do not know who is responsible for it, but I suppose it is the Pigs Marketing Board; I do not want to be holding a rifle to the head of that body at every moment. I cannot understand why that has happened. It inflicts a great hardship on pig rearers. I am aware that men paid for lorries or used their own lorries to take pigs to the factories, and when they got there they had to take the pigs back again, as the factories were not able to take them in. They had to go on feeding these pigs for a week or two, or more, and every day they kept a pig and fed it, that pig was being reduced in value. Now, in order to solve that problem, and so as not to lose on the pig when it got too heavy and went out of grade A, they asked for licences to export the pigs, but though the dealers were anxious to buy and export them, they were refused these licences. I ask the Minister to take a firm grip of this thing. It is not a case of taking a half grip. He should take a grip of the whole problem, and he should start even tomorrow to issue any licences that are necessary, so as to make it possible to provide a proper market for any heavy pigs that we have in the country. I know that Deputy Brennan has already told the Minister the position with regard to this question. Men have carried their pigs from Donegal to Claremorris in lorries, but when they got to Claremorris they found that the factories were unable to take them, in spite of what Deputy Gorey says. Deputy Gorey put Connacht into the Northern Ireland factories to-night. That is bad geography, but it does not matter, for the fact was that the pigs were brought from Donegal to Claremorris, and they had to be taken back. The owners had to continue feeding them, and every day, in addition to the cost of the food given them, the pigs depreciated in value, so that there was a double loss to the pig breeder.

If the licences were available the dealers were there to buy them and willing and ready to do so. It is so crassly stupid that it is hard to understand why the Minister's Department refused to issue licences for the export of these pigs in the circumstances that I have put before the House. The thing is really incredible. Speaking on the Budget last night, Deputy Coburn said that many a time he thought it would be a wise thing to clear out the whole lot of us, appoint a dictator and get the country's business done in a proper way. Just imagine the position when a man has finished fattening his pig, his labour is lost in this way. Once the pig is ready for the knife every extra day that pig has to be retained by him it becomes of less and less value. And that is allowed to go on and the pig producer treated in that way when maize meal in Donegal is costing 12/- a cwt. It is almost incredible that any Government Department could be responsible for such a thing. However, there it is and it is continuing because somebody in the Department refuses to issue licences, somebody puts down his foot like a dictator and says: "no, we cannot do that." And the national loss goes on. I am not saying these things in any carping spirit but in absolute good faith. What I say is that the Minister should put his foot down and put out of the way whoever is responsible for this sort of administration. Let the Minister come in and do it himself and he will have the full authority and concurrence of the House.

On this matter Deputy Gorey, I think, put his finger on a very sore point as to what has been occurring in the last few years. He has given one main explanation of the decrease in the pig population in the last couple of years. That was caused by the effort to popularise the admixture scheme. What happened was that the cost of the feeding stuffs was out of all proportion to the price realised by the finished pig. We have one Minister for Co-ordination, but he is only for co-ordinating one Department. It was put up here before that we should have a Minister for general co-ordination. It is quite futile for Ministers with the best intentions in the world to set up this commission unless at the same time they take control of feeding-stuffs. If the price of feeding-stuffs goes out of relation to the price received for pork and bacon, it is inevitable that the people will go out of pig production. The price of feeding maize, as the Minister knows, is £6 a ton in Liverpool. He knows that the price here is £9 5s. 0d. a ton.

The maize used by the small farmers in Donegal is maize meal costing at least 12/- a cwt. It is quite useless for us to pass this Bill unless the price of the finished pig is related to the cost of production. How this problem is solved in England I do not know. The Minister for Supplies was asked how it was that feeding maize could be supplied in England at £6 a ton while it was £9 5s. a ton here. Everybody was curious to know that but the Minister did not know it. One is surprised that he did not send a questionnaire to the office of the High Commissioner to ask how it is that maize is sold there at £6 a ton. Does the British Government say to the producers of maize: "This is the price we will pay you for maize, and if you do not take this price we cannot give you any price at all"? How is it there is a difference of £3 5s. a ton between the price here and in England? This House is only wasting its time setting up this commission unless there is complete co-ordination between the price of feeding-stuffs and the price of pigs. That will have to be done, otherwise farmers will not go on struggling, losing money on pig rearing. During the economic struggle that went on for four years the farmers continued to rear pigs because they were traditionally in that line of production. But they got so completely dragged in that struggle that they became exhausted. The people now want a new fillip. In this new job that the Government is undertaking one of the first things to be done is to distribute plenty of sows of good quality and breed throughout the country, and ensuring plenty of food for them. Then when the young pigs come along there will have to be a co-ordination between this commission and the Minister for Supplies with regard to feeding stuffs, and the fixing of the supplies of bacon. Every factor in its essence is simple. The first thing is to get the people to produce the pigs, then steps must be taken to see that the price for the finished article is a price that will pay. People may run one or two lots of pigs at a loss, but when the people get burned too often they drop out of production. I wish this Bill God-speed. I would be delighted to find that within three months it would bring back prosperity to the pig breeders and get the small farmers of the country into pig production again. The two mainstays of this country down through the centuries were the pig and the hen. We are now dealing with the pig. The Government policy has driven the small farmer out of the production of pigs and that is a national disaster. I am not sure whether we can in any wholesale way get back the sons and daughters of the farming population to the feeding of pigs again. Nothing could give me greater pleasure than to see this Bill doing that. In the hope that it will I give it my good wishes.

There is no form of life-stock production which responds more quickly than the production of pigs to influences that are either favourable or unfavourable. If you have a condition which is favourable to the marketing, and also a form of feeding which is cheap and easily available, then the industry responds very quickly indeed and is a success. It is good news that the production quota has been suspended. I have no doubt that that, at any rate, will help. On the grounds that we are thankful for small mercies, I except that the House will welcome that side of the proposal, but I think they would be far more pleased if the control by a board of one aspect of marketing were done away with, and if the Department or the Minister himself were to exercise the only control that would be available. The last speaker referred, very properly indeed, to the enormous importance of this industry to the small farmer of this country. I may say that probably the small farmers are the chief producers of pigs. They have the labour available, and they are able to grow on their small holdings the food which is most suitable for this form of production. I think the Minister is taking a very serious responsibility if he further bolsters up inefficiency by handing over the control to men who have not proved themselves a success. By removing competition and exercising control you bolster up the inefficient, and I, therefore, feel that the responsibility is the Minister's if, during a great crisis like the present, the pig industry goes down.

I happened to pay particular attention to the remarks of Deputy Hickey when he referred to the fact that, from the City of Cork, where they have many bacon factories, pigs had actually to be sent away to a distant part of the country in order to absorb the production there, when those pigs could be absorbed by local curers. I am a shareholder in a co-operative concern, the Cork Farmers' Union Abbatoir, and that certainly has done Trojan service to the pig feeders of this country, in as much as it has helped to curb the activities of the combines, and it gives in addition a very substantial bonus to those who carry on trading with it. It is a blessing to the farmers of Cork County, and to other counties which are able to send their pigs there. There is one important matter that it is very necessary for the Department and the Minister to take into consideration, and that is the decline in the pig population in this country. The capital perhaps is not available to men whose resources had been depleted by difficulties with which they have had to contend in the past. If the Minister could organise a scheme whereby the labourers and cottiers, as well as the small farmers, would be able to revive and carry on this great industry, and employ some of the members of their families in helping to produce what will be an important form of food, he would be doing a great service to this country.

The potato crop this year in the area I represent is a very fine one, and it will be a cheap form of food, but we must have a definite mixture for the feeding of this kind of livestock. Feeding merely on maize meal alone is going to give an inferior product. We must have a properly balanced ration. If we do that we can absorb a great deal of the cereal production of our farms, and produce a better quality of bacon. The marketing of bacon will be the chief means whereby we can get a price for our pigs. There is no question at all about it, if bacon falls in price then the price of pigs is going to fall. It is the making of marketing conditions readily available to the farmers of this country, and to the pig producers especially, that is going to give them their remuneration for feedings pigs. The greatest loss with which we have to contend occurs when we have pigs fit for the market and we are informed at the bacon curing establishment that the quota is full and they cannot be accepted. You then have to take the pigs back. You have either to starve them in order to keep them to the low weight—in that way the quality of the bacon will go down—or else you have to feed them properly, which will probably result in an overwhelmingly fat animal which it will be impossible to sell at a remunerative price. In fact owing to the impediments that are placed in your way, you cannot market the pigs at anything like a remunerative price. It is quite possible to get bacon pigs at five months old. You can produce them at that age by careful and skilful feeding. I certainly say that that is the quickest form of production you can possibly get in this country, and it would be a profitable one if we only had marketing conditions properly established. A cheap and properly balanced feed is absolutely essential to carry on this industry.

I was rather impressed by the remarks of Deputy O'Reilly when he mentioned the way the small marketing towns had been hit. I am very sympathetic in regard to that matter. I know very well that at those fairs large quantities of fat pigs were bought in the past. The buyers paid down for those pigs on the spot, and were undoubtedly men who gave very good service to the farmers at that time. The farmers wanted ready money and they got it, and as the price was agreed on it probably satisfied both parties. At any rate, the farmers had the alternative of sending the pigs to the factories if they were not satisfied with the prices. Now, those buyers have been done away with. There is at any rate an opportunity of letting those buyers export the very heavy pigs, which, under conditions which had been in existence and which we hope will terminate, were not easy to dispose of. The industry is of the utmost importance to the farmers of the country.

I am afraid that, as a pig producer, I cannot look with any degree of pleasure on the provisions of this Bill, but I hope that the Minister and his advisers will do what they can to alleviate the conditions which have done so much harm to pig producers in this country. A very serious position of affairs exists at the present moment. To injure pig production in any way would be a national disaster, and if the Minister has not realised that the conditions which have prevailed during the past 12 months or more have not helped it, I think he is not paying to his office the attention that the nation has a right to demand. I think if we had any patriotism at all in our composition we should devote our attention to encouraging this form of production. It is a production which can be enlarged very rapidly. The people can get into pig production perhaps more easily than into any other form of live-stock production. It is in the power of the Minister and his advisers to help them to do so to a degree that will make this industry a tremendous national asset, instead of being a source of national discontent.

Under the guise of discussing here to-night the Pigs and Bacon (Amendment) Bill, we are, in fact, aiming to clean up a very dirty, a very disastrous and a very deplorable mess. The chief compounder of that particular mess is, of course, the Minister. He aided himself in the disaster that he has brought upon the pig industry by whatever was his particular enthusiasm for, and his interest in, the maize-meal mixture scheme, and he helped again to aid himself, and he was aided by some of his colleagues, in so far as they diverted the type of food for pig feeding to the uneconomic production of industrial alcohol. It is hard to put any other phrase on the matter than a disastrous mess.

We have had three commissions reporting upon this matter since 1933. We had a Pig Industries Tribunal, and the Minister moved on foot of that report and established the two boards that have been universally condemned in the House this evening. Those two boards, after they had been in operation for some time, were reported upon by the Prices Tribunal, and only recently we got a first interim report from the Commission on Agriculture.

Let me start with the last. That report indicates, as far as its collective wisdom is concerned, that there is at least one thing required to be satisfactorily finished in this country, and that is that an end be made of the maize meal mixture scheme. They go into a series of detailed recommendations, hoping even that any sort of restriction by way of modifying the licences on the free importation of maize would be withdrawn, and they add a further recommendation on page 5 as to the necessity for growing here the valuable types of food for the proper feeding of pigs. That particular recommendation of theirs will not be met if there is any longer persisted in the diversion of that food stuff to the uneconomic production of alcohol.

There is a reservation No. 1, signed by half the members of the commission, and there is one notable paragraph. It is paragraph 3, on page 14, and it sets out:—

"At present there is a widespread lack of confidence among pig producers in the existing management of the curing industry. This is due to some extent to the Report of the Prices Commission showing that excessive profits have been taken out of the industry by curers. This lack of confidence is undoubtedly detrimental to any extension of pig production, and we believe that the confidence of pig producers in the future of the curing industry would be restored under a system of co-operative control of the factories under a central organisation."

Let us leave the conclusion alone. Eleven members of the commission of 24 find it necessary to put on record that there is a widespread lack of confidence among pig producers in the existing management of the curing industry. And that arises from the report of the Prices Commission. How far are we doing away with the disorder that was shown by the report of the Prices Commission? We are going to establish here a commission of three, and we are going to put at the head of it an individual in whom the Minister has confidence, the man whom he foisted on this House, the person for whom I ought to say immediately we disclaim any responsibility, the man who was put on those two boards to be the Minister's watchman.

The scheme as laid out in those two Acts, the Pigs and Bacon Acts, was a simple one. Certain men were selected for their position in the industry. It was thought that, being fairly well-to-do men, they were beyond the reach of anything in the nature of profiteering, and it was thought that whatever might be the temptation given to them by their position on the board, in any event they, being chosen men, would have been diverted by a sense of duty from merely picking up the loot that was definitely going to be scattered in front of them. But for fear they would not be diverted, the Minister had the appointment of one person. That person was his representative and, in so far as the Minister was under responsibility to this House, that person represented this House in the interests of the community. He was there to keep an eye on those people, to see, if the thieves did fall out, that he would regulate things, and even if they combined to render him ineffective under the measure as passed, he, in any event, had access to the Minister and could have reported.

Whether it is that he was timid, that he knew what was going on—and it is hard to believe that he could not understand that—and that he lacked sufficient character to tell the Minister what was going on, I do not know. It may be he was a man of character, but just stupid, and that he did not see what was going on in front of his very eyes. Whether he likes to enhance his character at the credit of his intelligence or vice versa, I care not. Now that the mess has been made and discovered, and the mess is so bad that even at this moment there is a whispered lack of confidence, the Minister tells us that he proposes again to appoint that individual as the head of the new tribunal of three.

That is not a good beginning. Remember that the particular offence of these people, as discovered by the Prices Commission, was enormous. They are charged here in set terms with quite a number of offences. It is stated that they diverted the machinery established for a particular purpose to their own private profits. They were put on as the representatives of a great industry, as men who are well-to-do, as men who, being well-to-do, and men who had a tradition in the industry, were likely to hand on that tradition unsullied to their descendants; it was thought they could be trusted to perform a public duty without being coerced by the watchman of the Minister, or by the retrospective criticisms of such a body as the Prices Commission. What is reported of them? That, at a particular period, there was a certain amount of money, through the hypothetical prices operation, in the till, and they met, and the commission go into some detail to try to discover was there any basis upon which the disbursement of this fund was made. They find there was one.

These people, when they met at a certain time and found they had so much, something over £300,000, under their control, did not go to any subtlety about even hiding their tracks; they did not bother themselves with any calculations as to ways and methods in which some part should be given back to the public and some percentage of these profits might be given to themselves. They had one simple attitude, and that was to find out how much was in the till and to divide it all. The commission's report on that is this sober language:

"Unless the amount of the available funds be taken as a measure, there appears to have been no exact basis on which the amount of this payment was determined."

That is putting courteously and politely what I put rather more plainly. The only calculation those men thought to make at the particular period was: how much is there to grab? and when they got the calculation made for them, then they proceeded simply to divide that out.

The Minister has told us to-night that there is actually £16,000 left in the fund. Do not let people be too cheerful that even that £16,000 is going to be saved. The board is not yet dissolved, I understand. They have divided up to date £1,973,000 out of £1,980,000 which they brought in. The whole lot has been divided out amongst them, except £16,000. Does the Minister assure us that even that £16,000 will remain safe? I doubt it. I doubt if he can. Remember that the report I am referring to was published over a year ago, and the Minister was asked afterwards if he knew that that report only brings the profiteering up to the year 1937. The Minister was questioned here repeatedly as to his information on certain points. He was asked if it was not a fact that the profits taken by the curers in the year 1938 were not better than those in any of the four years criticised here, and I think there was an implied admission on his part that, as far as he knew, the curers were having a better year in 1938. He was asked would he have the Prices Commission report on that matter and he said no. He was asked finally if he was going to see if he had any proposals to make as to the penalising of the curers for their action, and any proposals to recover the said amounts, for the benefit of the public. His answer was that the matters referred to were at present the subject of investigation. In a supplementary question it was put to him whether the investigation referred to would be completed before the Minister brought to the attention of the House the terms of the new Bacon Bill, and whether the Bill would be drafted in the light of the findings of this inquiry. His answer was that he hoped so.

I have not heard a word said here to-night about any action going to be taken against these people. As far as I can see, their influence will be as great as before. Their hands will not be immediately upon the moneys, but the chairman, who was powerless previously to prevent this division of these huge profits, is going to be the person again to whom we entrust the fortunes of the pig industry in the country.

What else did these people do? Under the control of the pig curers, they apparently thought little of anything else except diverting money to their own pockets. Two other things occurred. Whether it was entirely their fault or whether it was the result of other circumstances, I do not know, but we do know that pig stocks did not increase under their control. We know further that bacon as a commodity enjoyed by people in this country was very definitely decreased.

The home consumption sank from a high point of 820,000 cwt. in 1931, to 572,000 cwts. in 1937, a drop of 250,000 cwts. In any event, we find at the end of a particular period of control by these two boards that stocks have not increased; consumption of bacon has decreased, and decreased enormously; and a finding that in the three years— I am leaving out 1934 for the moment —in the three years, 1935, 1936 and 1937, the curers had appropriated to themselves £300,000. There is also a finding in that report that definite combination for interference with trade competition in the bacon industry did exist and all that, not merely grew, but was fostered by the two boards established by the Minister.

He was to take these things into his consideration and the consideration that he was giving to these matters was to be reflected in the new measure that he would introduce. We have the same chairman. What else have we? I thought at this point we might get a change. We are getting quite a lot of changes at the moment, schemes being abandoned that had been forced on the people. The definite fact has been revealed that some of these are uneconomic and they are being cast aside. There has grown up in this country over the last four or five years this system of administrative boards with considerable power, power against the consumer, power also against the producer, their operations definitely hidden or, at least, not definitely brought before this House for criticism from time to time. And not merely is there secrecy in respect of criticism and debate in the House but there is secrecy or, at least, there is a prevention of another remedy. The type of thing that I refer to has developed. There is a tendency to establish boards who are protected from any activity in the courts. If ordinary people in the community think that they have been penalised, and penalised wrongly, by these boards they find themselves faced almost with an impossibility in trying to get their rights. The habit is now definitely stabilised and stereotyped of giving these boards amazing powers, saying that the production of a minute book or an extract from a minute proves a variety of matters, saying that a certificate signed by the secretary of one of these boards proves a variety of other matters, saying that a report from the chairman or some official of the board not merely proves, but proves conclusively, the things that are recited therein.

There used to be a view accepted as a sound view that from time to time it became necessary to hand over public moneys and to give the facilities of public credit to people who were installed in bureaucratic positions and, generally, there were demanded from those people when they were so armed and so strongly entrenched, two things —one, that their activities should be open to examination in the courts, and that when they were open to examination in the courts they stood in no position any whit better than the ordinary litigant who was defending a case. They could not rely on any exceptional powers; they had to bring forward matters as evidence in the ordinary way. If anything, the dice was sometimes loaded against these people when they went into court. It was presumed that they had inside information which would not be open to the outsider, and there was an obligation placed upon a board established in such a position that they would bring forward certain information peculiarly known to themselves. The recent movement has been right away from that.

The second demand that was made on behalf of the public when boards of this type were set up was that there should be the completest and fullest publicity for their activities. The Minister to-night appears to waver in some way towards a particular type of publicity or criticism which I, personally, would not applaud. He is certainly agreeable to consider, if not to accept, some suggestion that he would be responsible for the activities of the new commission. If that means that the activities of the new commission are going to be under day to day discussion by Parliamentary question and resolution and debate in this House, then his board is going to be hampered in doing any useful work. There should be criticism. At least, there should be an opportunity for it. There should be an opportunity for bringing all the activities of the board into the light of day in this House, but it should not occur through day to day questioning. It should not occur in the way in which the Minister is questioned on the ordinary affairs of his Department. The way in which that situation used to be met previously, a way which had definitely good results, was that there should be reports procured from time to time, that the Minister would have power, not merely to get a mere statistical return, but that he had power to impose an actuary, somebody who would go into the whole business of the board and submit to the Minister, not the report the board thought he should get, but the report that the Minister desired, and that the Minister had the control of the details of that report. At least, the Minister could say, "You furnish me with a report on such and such lines and meeting this, that and the other point," and there is then an obligation on the Minister when such matter is reported upon and brought before him that he must bring that in here to this House.

When that is presented to the House, then the House gets an opportunity, if it likes, to have a debate once or twice in the year at most on the activities of the board. Although the Minister indicated that he is considering some method of giving an opportunity of criticising the activities of the board, so far as the Bill is concerned the only remedy which the Minister has introduced to meet the situation is that there is to be an annual return. What it will be, what it will contain, how far the House will get an opportunity of discussing it, the Minister has not told us.

I do wish for advice on the point. Does the Deputy suggest that if the annual report were as prescribed by the Minister and laid before the House it would meet the situation?

I say that it would be a tremendous advantage if the Minister would take power not merely to get a report from the board, but to put in some independent adviser of his own to examine the board, and that that person would report and not the board themselves.

Would a report as prescribed by the Minister cover it?

A report as prescribed by the Minister, if carried out by somebody imposed by the Minister on the board. He has the example of the Electricity Supply Board. Its accounts have to be investigated by an outside auditor appointed by the Minister, but paid for by the board. The Minister is further required by the statute to call not merely for that return but to call for a report on the return, and he must present to the House then both the report and the explanation of it. I suggest that the Minister should do something like that. I suggest to the Minister that it would be better if he would keep the board out of the House. If he can say that there are a couple of paragraphs in this Bill under which we may get a discussion, then well and good; but that is only going partly to meet the case. If the Minister is going to surround this board still with all this matter of proof and of evidence and fortify them so that no litigant can take them into court in the way any board can be taken into the courts, he is only giving the right of criticism after the event, and he is not giving the ordinary litigant the chance to get his rights in court when the particular grievance is new.

However, the Minister is, apparently, agreeable to consider and, possibly, to bring in here something to meet the desire that has been expressed in this House. I think it will be found to be universally welcomed that the operations of the commission will be subject to criticism. I do not believe it is possible for any board to carry on if the Minister is going to be faced in the Order Paper week after week with demands as to prices paid here and prices paid there. The only way in which the board can be attacked is at certain stated intervals when one can get a proper view of the activities over six or 12 months. But he must face another proposal. He is taking the ordinary powers that, when he appoints people, the people whom he appoints remain there at his pleasure. The Minister ought, if only as a warning, to insert a section saying that he can, with the approval of the House, dismiss them.

I can do it without that.

It simply says that the Minister will appoint three people. Two of these people, we understand, are going to be civil servants. A civil servant may be removed; a civil servant may go; but it is necessary, in order to teach a lesson to the successor of a man who has gone bad, that his dismissal should be made public. I suggest that the Minister in the Bill should definitely impose on himself this obligation, that, if any one of these three at any time has to be removed, it ought to be with the assent of the House on a case made to the House; always excepting the temporary thing which is met with in some of these paragraphs in the Bill where a man gets ill and there has to be a temporary appointment made.

But once the Minister takes the responsibility of appointing these people, I suggest to him that the proper way to keep these people in hands is that their activities should be exposed to the House once or twice a year and that the Minister should have the power, which he can exercise if we, by a majority, so think fit, of publicly dismissing one, two, or three of these for reasons which would be stated to the House. That is the situation in regard to certain other measures. It was the situation which had developed when there was that debate, that occasionally you had to give people immense powers, and the consideration to the public in return for that was great publicity of their doings and immediate punishment by way of dismissal when their misdeeds had found them out.

If I am to take the Agricultural Commission's report as a standard, I suggest that the Minister is not likely to restore the confidence of the 11 persons who signed this reservation No. 1 in the report, and who state that they have found through the country a lack of confidence among pig producers in the existing management of the curing industry. How could there be any confidence in it? I am sure the Minister knows as well as I do what is really the scandal at the back of the Prices Commission's report. If the Minister does not know it, he would not require, I think, to look at very many copies of the journal known as Stubbs' Gazette before he could find out what was the scandal. The Minister must know as well as anybody in touch with the industry that round about 1931 some prominent curers in this country found themselves on the verge of insolvency, and that they were saved from that by the operations of the Pigs and Bacon Boards. The Minister could trail for himself the progress of insolvency to a happy and sound financial position of one of these particular establishments. If he reads through certain copies of that journal, he will find where debentures were being paid off fast, and were being paid off fast because the country people were being robbed; and while they were clearing off debts, and indicating through the columns of Stubbs' Gazette that they were clearing off debts, bacon as a breakfast food was being cleared off thousands of tables in this country.

The position the Minister has now left us in is this: that through the weakness of the chairman of the board, whom he proposes again to reinstate, and through the operations of this board, some of those curers—and when I speak of curers in connection with the Prices Commission's Report I am not to be understood as criticising the curers as a body; I am criticising the curers who are criticised in the report; those who were on the board or who influenced the board—some of these curers are in an immensely strong position. I, personally, hate the thought of those boards. I think that any of the attempts at regulating industry of any type made in this country for ten years past must have sickened most people of regulation. I think that when the era of free competition dawns again, this country is going to be a much cheaper country to live in; that there is going to be less profiteering, less of the big business men lording it over the smaller fry in the community.

The only reason I support any measure of this sort is that I think the Minister, through the operations of these boards, has allowed a couple of curers to grow to this magnitude, that if the pig producers and the bacon consumers in the country were left without some protection at this moment they would be fleeced even more than they were fleeced in the past. If such a position has grown up, I feel it is because of the liberty that these people took in the teeth of the Minister's Act, but with the Minister's sanction, and, in any event, without his condemnation; certainly without the Minister attempting to get any part of what they stole from the community back from them.

I do not know that the new commission is going to bridle these people. Apparently, we have got the reply that the Government as a whole has decided that they are going to take no steps to get back any of the money from these people. I cannot understand the distinction that is made. The petty courts in this country are filled week after week with unfortunate men who are brought up there, and charged with the grievous offence of having taken an unemployment stamp or a health insurance stamp off a book which would be useless to the particular person to whom it rightly belonged, and affixed that stamp, worth less than 2/-, to another book. Men are being brought up and fined, and fined heavily, and subjected to other punishment for that. A group of bacon curers are roundly accused by a public commission of having stolen £300,000, and the Minister tells us he does not defend that, but he will not take the same action against them that is taken every day against men who took a stamp off another man's book. The only excuse the curers made for that particular act was: "Oh, it is not so much". There was some fraction of a penny in the lb. Possibly their calculation is right. The only lesson I draw from it is that it shows how closely the profits of those who are concerned in the producing and selling of food-stuffs to the community must be scrutinised, if a small fraction, such a fraction as a penny in the lb., can bring in these people what this commission calls unreasonable profits. The Prices Commission did not set out to take all the profits from them. By no means. They show the profits that used to be made. They give a graph which shows the distinction between the old and the new profits. They show one shaded portion and call that the unreasonable profits taken over four years.

Remember this is their own allegation, and what the Minister accepts and what the new Agricultural Commission reported as having caused a complete lack of confidence in the country—that these people diverted the machinery of the Acts to their own private purposes. It is quite possible these people have dealt a blow, not merely at the bacon industry, but at the system under which industry as a whole is run, from which it will take that system a long time to recover. If I were minded to engage in an attack upon the whole capitalist system, I do not think if I were enthusiastic for the destruction of capitalism in my wildest dreams I could have expected a sharper weapon to be put into my hands than the Prices Commission Report on these people. I do not know whether the Minister considers it an advantage to bridle these people. I know he has given them bad example. If the Minister contested the findings of the commission the matter would be entirely different. If the Minister put up some case that the curers have not made, we might find some alleviation of their misdeeds. The Minister told us, I remember, that he does not defend them, and I have never yet heard him contesting one single finding of that particular body. The Minister now comes on with a new proposal but, in the background, there is the finding all the time hanging over the industry like a cloud, that these people, the best that the industry could supply, and the best from the point of view of the public interest, are here exposed as having turned to private gain, of having manoeuvred the position given them in confidence as representatives of the public and as representatives of this House.

They abused that position and manipulated the whole business, so that they got extortionate profits for themselves, and the Minister does not defend them, but he will not take any steps to get any part of the money back. I do not care if it costs in administrative expenses 50 per cent. of the money they got away with, the example and good that would be done by making the example would, I think, be of enormous benefit to the country. The Minister, apparently, has decided that that is not going to happen, and we are thrown back on this commission with its two civil servants. I have not heard the names, but I understand from speeches made about them that they are regarded as eminent, and adequately skilled to look after this business, and that they are proper people to put in charge. But they are civil servants, and the only so-called outside independent person put on the board is the chairman who so badly let the public down, and so definitely let these curers get away with this amount of money.

The Minister knows that that was not the only scandal associated with the bacon business. I referred previously in this House to the case of one company, the Monaghan Curing Company, and if the answers I got, when I put a question to the Minister about it, are any indication of the answers we shall get hereafter if we put questions about the new commission, then the new commission will not have any blaze of publicity in or about it. The Minister will recollect that case, that a certain company was found guilty by a district justice of what he described as a very serious breach of the Pigs and Bacon Act. He continued:

"Apparently that the company should escape payment of the difference between the fixed and the hypothetical prices deliberately fraudulent returns were made which gave the weights of pigs less than their proper weight."

The system I understand adopted in that particular concern was that they had false weights, and returned to the farmer who brought in a pig, a certain weight, and entered the correct weight in their own books for their own purposes, and in that way, in two months, they were able to defraud the people who brought them pigs of about £250. The depredations, I understand, were at the rate of £1,500 per year. They were fined on each of 13 summonses brought against them, and I asked the Minister if he intended to take any action under the Act against them, and he said "No." What these heavyweight curers had done on a big scale, the Monaghan smaller men decided to do on a little more sordid scale. The curers having nobody to look after them, except the chairman whom the Minister again is going to set up as an authority, pilfered openly and the Monaghan curers not being able to effect their purpose so easily had to resort to the ordinary method of false weights. There are small traders in Dublin who without any fault of their own, selling goods by weight, when weights are smoothed out by usage and when they are discovered to be giving wrong weight they are immediately prosecuted and fines are imposed and there is a record against them in business life hereafter. The Monaghan Curing Company was found guilty in 13 cases of what amounts to fraudulent returns and the Minister says he will take no action. I can understand a complete lack of confidence in those whom it is apparently desired to bring into pig production because of this case.

The Prices Commission, the Pig Industries Tribunal and the new Commission on Agriculture report that it is desirable to have larger stocks of pigs and that more people must be brought into pig production. They tell us that there is complete lack of confidence and that there are two other economic disadvantages. They are glad to find that these economic disadvantages are no longer going to have effect. The maize-meal mixture is in process of being abolished—it is to be a thing of the past soon—and they recommend that power should be given to the new chairman of whatever commission is set up to report to the Prices Commission if he thinks feeding stuffs are kept at an inordinately high price. These things are to go, but one thing will remain with us, and that is the old bad atmosphere, whether it be weakness, stupidity, fault of character or of mind, or of intelligence; it is still going to hang around the new commission as long as the individual who allowed these curers to play about as they did is put in a position of authority on the new board.

It may be that we will meet that situation by new lines of publicity; it may be that when the Minister brings in proposals, it will be seen that we have power at stated intervals to get the Minister to call for adequate returns and get these returns discussed in the House. Then we will have some way, even after the event, of finding out how these people are working and bringing them to book.

The Minister will, I hope, bear in mind, when thinking of proposals in that connection that, even although there is a war on about us, and even though we are at present governed by emergency legislation, we are still supposed to be living in a democratic State; that this is still supposed to be the great institution of the country; and that this institution to which we are sent forms part of the institution to pass legislation which we think is for the good of the country and to set up a body of people who will execute and carry out the legislation passed; but the method by which we are supposed to arrive at what is best for the country is still that of debate, and there cannot be well-informed debate unless there are two things: firstly, freedom in the asking of questions on all matters pertaining to the public interest and, secondly, honesty and frankness in the answers given to such questions as are put.

Our experience in the last two months has been deplorable in that matter. When I came into the House, Deputy Hickey was referring to these matters. I hope I am not repeating what was said in the last two or three days, but we had the spectacle of a Minister telling us that he made certain purchases. There is no doubt about it that the question under consideration was one that had effects, possibly in a more serious way than most things that happened recently, on the whole community—what purchases were made, what was the amount and what was the price paid. These were vital things and the Minister refused to give information, hiding himself behind the cloak of its not being in the public interest.

I asked long ago questions both about these curers and about the Monaghan curing establishment, and the Minister evaded the questions. The only thing I wanted was to find out what the Minister was going to do with regard to these people, and he told me that the whole situation was under consideration and would be reflected in the new legislation. The Industrial Credit Corporation was to have been a corporation to be set up here similarly, and the Minister who had to do with it told us that there would be frequent opportunities to discuss matters connected with that body and for questioning from time to time. Well, I have seen a couple of dozen questions put down with regard to that body within the last six months, but I have not yet seen a frank answer to any of these questions. This system of boards, apparently, causes the growing up of a system of withholding information and refusing to answer questions, and if the Minister is going to persist in that kind of thing in connection with this board, then I think I would rather have the position in which he would leave the community at the mercy of these curers entirely and let us have these questions put in our own way; but if the Minister is taking the halfway house and sets up some board and then asks us to allow him to disclaim responsibility for that board, mainly, through the year, then the Minister, when we do think fit to raise an important matter during the interim between one report and another, should be prepared to state here that he will give the fullest consideration to any matter that may be brought before him by a Deputy and that he will give the information which Deputies require and which they must ask for here if they are to do their duty in the interests of their constituents.

If, on the other hand, we are going to have the system of withholding reports and withholding information, and merely evading the issues involved in questions that are put to the Minister, then the new situation will be worse than the old, because, at any rate, with regard to the old situation, we always did know that sooner or later, as matters were getting worse, to the knowledge of those who did understand what was happening behind closed doors, it was certain that the matter would amount to a scandal and that it would have to be revealed eventually.

I do not think the Minister has given us much hope, from the way in which he has tackled this matter, that there is going to be any improvement, because he is obviously reluctant to discuss the curers or any of these people who have been disclosed in the way in which they have been. He definitely did not treat the House as it should be treated by a Minister who still believes in the institution of parliamentary government. It is only by giving the information which such a parliamentary institution requires that such institutions can last. I hope that the Minister will reveal a better attitude towards this matter and that he will fully implement the promises he has made tentatively to-night with regard to some form of examination and information in connection with the implementation of this board. I cannot compliment the Minister on the Bill in so far as it brings in the old system. I do not like the idea of a board at all, but I believe that some kind of a board has to be set up if we are to prevent complete fleecing of the community by certain people at the moment. I do hope, however, even in this short period, that if the Minister is going to have such a board established, he will try to have a better personnel than has been suggested, and that he will give us the fullest freedom of discussion and the fullest opportunity to criticise it.

Mr. Brennan

I should like to tell the Minister that I have just received information which I should like to put before him. During the discussion, mention was made of a fair in my locality. I have just had a telephone message from there to say that a telegram has come through to the representative of one of the biggest factories in Ireland, indicating to him that he cannot buy any pigs there to-morrow because they are not doing any killings this week-end. There are hundreds of pigs there and it will mean great loss if they are not bought. Can the Minister do anything about it?

I hope I shall be able to do something about it.

Can the pig dealers buy?

I am afraid not. I think there is a misunderstanding about that. I do not know whether this is genuine or not, but I cannot issue as many licences for export as the Deputy thinks. At the beginning of the month there is an agreement between the British and ourselves as to the number to go out, and the number of licences has to be determined by that.

Does the Minister want the House to believe that the British Government will not take pigs in at the present moment?

No. I am quite sure that they will take as much as we like to send them, in the form either of pigs or of bacon, but we must agree as to how much of that will be in the form of pigs and how much in the form of bacon.

Mr. Brennan

Will the Minister agree as to this? This is from a statement issued by the Irish Pig Dealers' Association, and published in Monday's papers:—

"As from the outbreak of war the quota system in Britain ceased to exist, and at the moment they are open to receive any quantity of live pigs from Éire, irrespective of weights, at the top market price. The only restrictions at the moment are those imposed by the Pigs and Bacon Exports Committee of Éire, which restricts the number of live pigs which may be exported from this country."

That is not the case.

Mr. Brennan

Did the Minister see that? It is a statement by the Irish Pig Dealers' Association.

The traders there will take them, but that is a different matter.

Has the quota system ceased to exist?

No, it has not.

If this fair is lost to-morrow, it will be a serious matter.

I move to report progress.

Progress reported; the Committee to sit again to-morrow.
The Dáil adjourned at 10.30 p.m. until Friday, 24th November, at 10.30 a.m.
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