asked the Minister for Supplies if he will grant an allowance of 1 lb. of sugar per acre to growers of wheat, oats and barley for the 1944 harvest period, as an allowance per acre is needed by growers to cater for their workers during such period.
Ceisteanna—Questions. Oral Answers. - Sugar Allowance for Grain Growers.
The proposal to make special allowances of sugar or other rationed foodstuffs to growers of cereals for the 1944 harvest period to enable them to cater for their workers during that period would involve administrative difficulties of such a nature as to make it impracticable, and for this and other reasons could not be adopted.
Would it be possible to make a small allowance of sugar to people, such as I have in mind, who are not growers of sugar beet? I suggest that it would be very difficult for farmers who are not growers of beet sugar to provide sugar for their workers, and it cannot be expected that casual farm workers would bring their sugar allowance along with them to be used during the period in which they are working with the farmers.
I think that if the Deputy were to consider the administrative problems involved, he would realise the difficulties. We can give a fixed allowance of sugar to persons who supply sugar beet to the factories, but if we were to do what the Deputy suggests—to make an allowance of sugar to all farmers in relation to the average they tilled—it would involve such administrative difficulties as to make the proposal completely impossible.
I realise the difficulties, but I think it should be possible to provide some scheme to deal with this matter.
If that were to be followed out, it would mean giving a larger sugar allowance to everybody.