asked the Minister for Industry and Commerce if he will state whether the Donegal Flour Milling Company, Milford, County Donegal, and Ballisodare Flour Milling Company, County Sligo, are being supplied with wheat of a quality inferior to that supplied to Dublin and other flour-milling companies throughout the country; and if so, if he will state the reasons, if any, why the Donegal and Ballisodare Flour Mills are not being given the same quality of wheat as that supplied to other mills.
Ceisteanna—Questions. Oral Answers. - Wheat Supplies for Donegal and Ballisodare Mills.
The distribution of wheat is officially controlled only in the case of imported wheat. The Milford (Donegal) Flour Mills, Limited, and W. & G.T. Pollexfen & Company, Limited, Ballisodare, are being supplied with imported wheat of the same quality as that supplied to Dublin and other flour-milling companies.
Do I understand from the Minister's reply that the Milford and Ballisodare flour mills are supplied with the same quality of wheat?
So far as native wheat is concerned, millers are entitled to purchase their quota anywhere in the country that they can obtain it and there is no official regulation of such purchases. Official control is exercised only in the case of imported wheat, and in the case of imported wheat these companies are getting the same quality of wheat, in the same proportion in relation to their total supplies, as other flour mills.
The extraordinary thing about it is that the bread produced by bakeries getting a supply of flour from those mills is of a very inferior quality to that produced by bakeries getting a supply of flour from other mills. On making inquiries at the Milford flour mill, I was given to understand that in regard to the amount of American flour imported here, a greater proportionate quantity was supplied to the Dublin mills than to the Ballisodare and Milford mills.
No. There is a uniform admixture of foreign wheat in the grist of all mills. It is the same for all mills in the country.