asked the Minister for Agriculture if he will state whether a special Committee has examined and reported on the position of the pig, pork and bacon industry and made recommendations; if so, if he will state by whom the Committee was set up, its terms of reference, the names and qualifications of its members, the date upon which it commenced its examinations and the date of its report; and if he will publish the report of the Committee, including the recommendations made, with information as to the persons who were invited to give evidence and those who gave evidence.
Ceisteanna—Questions. Oral Answers. - Pig, Pork and Bacon Industries.
A Departmental Committee was set up by me to examine the position in the pig, pork and bacon industries and to advise me in regard to the measures which might be taken to regulate the production and marketing of pigs and pig products. The circumstances in which the Committee was set up and its terms of reference are given in paragraphs 19 and 20 of the recently issued White Paper on the Re-organisation of the Pig and Bacon Industries.
The names of the members of the Committee, all of whom are officers of the Department are: J. Mahony, agricultural inspector; J. Duffy, agricultural inspector; P.A. Rogan, senior inspector; J.C. Nagle, assistant principal officer.
It is contrary to established practice to publish the contents of Departmental memoranda or reports, and I do not propose to furnish particulars other than those which appear in the White Paper. Before submitting to me the results of its examination, the Committee had discussions with persons concerned with various aspects of the pig and bacon industries and also had the advantage of being able to study previous reports on the matter, as well as the memoranda and minutes of evidence on the subject submitted to the Committee of Inquiry on Post-Emergency Agricultural Policy. The Committee also had regard to schemes in relation to the pig and bacon industries in operation elsewhere.
Are we to understand that the White Paper is based upon a report which will not be published and upon evidence given by persons about whom we are to be given no information?
Will the Minister say if the industry was given an opportunity of giving evidence?
Yes.
In what way? Did they offer to give evidence, or was evidence invited from them? Were a few people selected to give evidence?
No.
Was there a public invitation?
Witnesses who had given oral evidence before the Commission on Post-Emergency Agricultural Policy included representatives of the Irish Bacon Curers' Association and of five individual curing firms. All that evidence was passed on.
What about the pig producers?
A number of pig producers and farmers, as well as pig dealers, gave evidence. There were in all 133 witnesses.
How were they invited? Was a public invitation extended to anyone who wished to give evidence?
I think there was.
Not before this committee?
No, before the Commission on Post-Emergency Agricultural Policy.
If the Dáil is to be asked intelligently to discuss the recommendations contained in the White Paper, why has the Minister chosen to depart from the normal procedure in connection with commissions which have considered specific proposals, that is, that the report of the commission should be published, as well as the minutes of evidence tendered before it, so that Dáil Éireann might consider the evidence and possibly reach conclusions not in every particular identical with those of the commissioners who sat?
We do not propose to depart from established practice in this matter. No Minister would be expected to publish a memorandum submitted to him by his own officers on any particular subject.
I am not asking for that. A number of interested parties in the pigs and bacon trade were invited to give evidence before this commission, if they wished to do so.
Not before this committee.
Before a variety of committees whose joint results have been brought together for the purpose of the preparation of the White Paper. An amount of evidence was given. Is there any reason why the Minister should not, at his convenience, give Deputies access to the evidence, so that they might persue it themselves and form their judgments in the light of the evidence given by the various interested parties who presumably spoke as experts or quasi-experts?
I did not give any thought to that particular aspect. The evidence of the witnesses who gave evidence on the dairying industry, on the question of tillage, on maize and so on, has not been published, but that is a matter which could be considered separately.
Will the Minister say whether this Departmental Committee, about whose work we are to be allowed to know nothing, is the kind of machinery the Minister has set up to take the place of the Pig Products Council recommended by the Commission on Vocational Organisation, on the one hand, and the Agricultural Inquiry and Advisory Council recommended by the Commission on Post-Emergency Agricultural Policy on the other?
The committee set up was not exactly what was recommended by the Commission on Post-Emergency Agricultural Policy. They recommend a permanent commission, as it were, to advise them on agriculture and agricultural subjects. Now that recommendation was not adopted. What was adopted was a committee of officers of the Department to submit reports on the various tag-ends that had been passed over, or which the committee had not time to examine themselves.
And pigs, pork, and bacon are the tag-ends of agriculture.
If the Deputy wants to parse words, he can have it that way.