I move:
That a supplementary sum not exceeding £329,860 be granted to defray the Charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending 31st March, 1944, for the Salaries and Expenses of the Office of the Minister for Supplies, including payments of certain Subsidies and Sundry Grants-in-Aid.
Deputies will have seen the sub-heads under which additional money is required. Apart from the increased expenditure on salaries, wages and allowances arising from bonus payments, these additional amounts are necessary mainly for two purposes: for food subsidies and for turf subsidies. The additional amount required for food subsidies is solely in connection with tea. The House is familiar with our position in regard to tea. We have been receiving through British Tea Control an allocation of tea equal to 25 per cent. of our normal purchases, representing about half an ounce per head per week of our population. In 1941 a company was established under Government auspices—Tea Importers Limited—to purchase tea in India. The company purchased about 12,000,000 pounds of tea, but of that amount only about 5,400,000 pounds had been shipped to this country before the development of war in the Far East, which made further shipping impossible. The balance of the tea lying in Calcutta, which could not be shipped, was sold by the company. The sale realised a profit of about £46,000. The tea which was imported came, as Deputies will remember, by a round about route. It was shipped from India to New York, from New York to Newfoundland and from Newfoundland here. On arrival here it cost substantially more than the tea which we received from British Tea Control on which the present retail price of tea is based.
In consequence of these stocks imported directly by Tea Importers Ltd., we were able to increase the half-ounce ration to one ounce during the winter of 1942-1943 and to maintain it at three-quarters of an ounce since. As it was considered undesirable to increase the price of tea, the tea allocated by Tea Importers Ltd. from their imports from India had to be sold at a loss. If that tea were sold at a price which would have avoided a loss, an increase of 8d. per pound on tea would have been necessary. Under present circumstances, the actual expenditure per household which an increase of 8d. per pound would necessitate might not be much, but it was regarded as undesirable and the sale by Tea Importers Ltd. of their tea at a price which made an increase of only 4d. possible involved the company in a loss of approximately £200,000. Against that loss of £200,000 there is the profit of £46,000 on the tea sold in India which could not be shipped and it is necessary now to provide a sum of £154,000 to make good the company's loss.
The company is a non-profit-making organisation set up by the Government for the sole purpose of importing this tea. The quantity of tea which was imported by the company in 1941 is now nearing exhaustion. I do not think there is any possibility that additional supplies of tea of any consequence will be procured. Some small lots of tea become available from time to time, and when they become available they are acquired by this company, but the prospect of any substantial addition to our stocks is not very bright.
It is a question which the Government will have to decide, whether we should continue the present ration of tea until these stocks are exhausted or whether we should seek to conserve some of the stocks by reducing the ration, at least temporarily. So long as we continue to receive the allocation of tea from the British Tea Control there is ½ oz. per head per week available. Probably the Dáil will agree— I am not asking them to agree now, but I think it is a matter upon which there is not likely to be much difference of opinion—that it is desirable that the remaining portion of the tea held up by Tea Importers, Limited should be carried over to meet the requirements of next winter. I think a higher ration of tea in the winter would be regarded as good policy. If there is to be a reduction it is probably better to make it at the period when milk is most plentiful. Milk is scarcest in the winter and it is the time when many families would prefer to have a higher ration of tea.
We cannot continue the present ration indefinitely during the summer and not have to make a reduction in the winter. In these circumstances it is thought desirable that approaching the summer season the ration of tea should be reduced to the amount we are getting from the British Tea Control and carry to next winter the reserve so as to permit of a resumption of the present ration during the winter months. If this company should be able to procure any additional supplies of tea, no doubt a fresh subsidy will be required, but I think it is exceedingly unlikely that the Dáil will be called upon for money for this purpose.
The other sub-head of the Vote relates to the turf subsidy. The amount estimated to be required to enable the price of turf to be maintained unchanged during the year proved less than the actual amount necessary, for three main reasons. First of all, the actual cost of turf to Fuel Importers, Limited, the turf produced by the county surveyors or acquired by them from private producers, was higher than had been anticipated. When the Estimate was being maintained the final accounts of these surveyors for the 1941-1942 seasons had not been received. They have since been received and show that the production cost during these two years was higher than had been assumed by approximately 5/6 per ton. Secondly, the cost of handling turf in the non-turf areas, that is to say, the cost of its delivery to the dumps and its maintenance in the dumps and delivery from the dumps to merchants in good condition, was also greater than was anticipated.
