I move motion No. 6:—
That Dáil Éireann is of opinion that, having regard to the existing costs of production, the present prices paid to the producer for milk supplied to creameries and for milk sold for human consumption are inadequate and that immediate steps should be taken to increase the price so as to give the producer the cost of production plus a fair profit.
Since that motion was put on the Order Paper the Minister for Agriculture has done something to alleviate the position, he has given an increase of 1d per gallon. I do not think, however, that an increase of 1d. per gallon meets the condition of affairs created since the price of milk was previously fixed by Deputy Smith when he was Minister for Agriculture and since the death-bed repentance of Deputy James Dillon when he gave an increase of 1d per gallon. In order to put the case for this motion I have to go back to the position existing when the price of milk was fixed by Deputy Smith in 1947. Due very largely to the policy of the Department of Agriculture through the years, a condition of affairs has been created in which we have a definite decline each year in the production of milk per cow. That decline in production has been largely due to the endeavour of the Department of Agriculture to meet the needs of the cattle trade in this country and the needs of the British with regard to beef, by trying to produce a dual-purpose animal.
That has brought about an absolute decline in milk production. You have a condition of affairs existing to-day in which, if milk is converted into any product except butter, a far higher price can be paid to the producer of milk. If the people of this country require butter, then they should be prepared to pay the farmer an economic price for the milk to produce it, a price which will be at least equal to the price that the farmer can get if that milk is converted into chocolate crumb or anything else except butter.
We had within the past hour a motion of the Labour Party asking for an increase in agricultural wages. I said on that motion that the whole economy in relation to our principal industry is wrong. We have in agriculture a situation where the farmer, his sons, his daughters and the agricultural labourer are working at a wage of something under £4 per week whilst, at the same time, unskilled labourers in other occupations are earning anything from £5 to £6 per week. Whilst that condition lasts production will not increase. It will continue steadily to decline.
It is my contention that the price paid for milk is uneconomic. It is uneconomic now for the farmer to keep cows for the production of milk. In 1946-47 the Cork Milk Producers' Association handed over to Professor Murphy of University College, Cork, a certain number of farms for the purposes of costings. For seven months of the year Professor Murphy found that the cost of milk production was 22.70 pence or 1/10¾d per gallon. For the summer months milk was grass fed and therefore cost less. I might mention that these costings did not take into consideration the cost of the farmer's own labour, management or interest on the farmer's capital.
That was the position in 1946-47. I will deal now with agricultural labour at that period. The weekly wage in June, 1946, to May, 1947, was £2 7s. 6d. per week. From May, 1947, it was £2 13s. 6d. per week for the period, making a rough average of £2 10s. per week. It is at present £3 14s. 6d. per week coupled with a consequential loss of 283 hours per working year due to holidays and a half-day per week. There is now one week's holiday with pay plus one half-day per week, due to Acts passed by this House. According to Professor Murphy's costings there are 155 labour hours per cow. Taking the 500-gallon cow—not the average 350-gallon cow—the actual increase would amount to £1 12s. 1d. per cow. That converted into the cost of production is roughly 2d. per gallon. I am dealing now solely with the increase granted since this Government came into office. The total increase since the Minister took office due to the weekly half-holiday, the week's holidays with pay, the 7/6 increase and the change in our area from Group III to Group II, representing 3/- per week, amounts altogether to 18/6 per week. That gives 1.37d. per gallon. We have got 1d. per gallon.
I do not know on what basis the Minister is working. I would remind him that there is an enormous market for milk in lines other than butter. I know the needs of the country in relation to butter. I know further that if the Minister has to purchase butter from abroad he will have to pay a price for it representing roughly 1/6 per gallon for milk delivered to the creamery. We hear complaints about the cost of living. We had an increase last week in the price of sugar. Why? Because we are compelled to buy sugar from the Cuban and the Formosan, and pay far more for it than we are prepared to pay the Irish farmer for producing the beet and the Irish labourer for converting that beet into sugar in the factory. Will we have the same condition of affairs now in relation to the actual basis of our entire agricultural industry, namely the milch cow? I want the Minister to examine the situation. Apparently he is not prepared to work on the costings arrived at by Professor Murphy, costings which I very generously handed over to his predecessor.
