asked the Minister for Industry and Commerce if he will consider giving permission to sanatoria and other hospitals to use white bread, in view of the fact that white flour had been imported from America, and as there is great waste in these institutions owing to the poor quality of the bread supplied at present.
Ceisteanna—Questions. Oral Answers. - White Bread for Hospitals.
So long as special measures have to be adopted to conserve supplies of flour, I cannot see my way to adopt the Deputy's suggestion that the white flour referred to should be made available for the purposes mentioned by him.
This is a special request from the people in the institutions, as a result of which I have put down this question. Seeing that white flour now is being mixed in all the flour mills and that there is wastage, not alone in hospitals but throughout the whole country, I think the least the Minister might do is to allow some of this flour to people in sanatoria, even if he has to put them on a ration. At the moment the only bread people are able to get——
The Deputy is making a speech. If he has a supplementary question, he may ask it.
I think that, in view——
What the Deputy thinks is not a question.
The Minister told me before, in reply to a similar question, that we had no white flour in the country. Now we have the white flour, so why not give it to the institutions?
The flour to which the Deputy referred was imported because we could not obtain sufficient wheat. It is of 80 per cent. extraction and is being mixed with home-produced flour of about 92 per cent. extraction, so as to give a mixture corresponding to that ordinarily in use. The supply position does not permit of any easement of the restrictions.
Would the Minister say if any more flour is on the way from America?
It is a matter of extreme doubt.