I want to make certain submissions on the Money Resolution. I make them with special reference to the Money Resolution because the observations I wish to tender now have a very restricted relevance, and I desire to keep them within that narrow relevance for the purpose of the Resolution. In presenting this Bill, the Parliamentary Secretary told us of estimated costings which had been furnished to him and the estimated price at which the product of the grass meal plant might be marketed if the conditions obtaining now remained stable or any way near stable. I now submit to him that the costings which have been furnished to him bear little or no relation to the experience of people who have been engaged in this business for some time in this country. Personally, I can neither vouch for the Parliamentary Secretary's costings nor the costings I submit to him now. I am merely drawing his attention to this in case he should think it expedient to make further and better inquiries before proceeding with this enterprise.
I think he stated in the Dáil that he hoped to see grass meal produced in Bangor-Erris at about £22 7s. per ton. I am told that where the procedure has been mechanised to the highest possible degree on the best possible land obtainable for the growing of grass the lowest costing which has been achieved has been in the order of £25 6s. per ton. It has to be borne in mind that this costing was achieved in Great Britain where the price of fertilisers is much lower than here and where other costs may not be as high as they are here. It has been suggested by those experienced in the production of grass meal under our conditions that the cost will be in the order of £29 per ton.
I am obliged further to direct the Parliamentary Secretary's attention to the fact that he informed us that his best advice was that this product might sell at something between £31 and £34 per ton according to quality. I understand that before estimating the receipts of this enterprise from the grass meal one has to have regard to the experience of other vendors whohave found in practice that the average price realised by them during the year 1952 was £31 2s. per ton, from which they had to deduct £1 7s. per ton, leaving them a net revenue of £29 15s: I understand that persons who have been engaged in this business find that the domestic requirement of this commodity, which is mainly from compound feed manufacturers, does not absorb and cannot be hoped to absorb more than 7,000 tons annually, that other producers are in the position to produce 5,000 tons, that the addition of 4,000 tons per annum to the total supply will involve the necessity for exporting a considerable part of the total production of the Bangor-Erris plant, and that it is highly unlikely at the prices ruling in Great Britain or the United States of America that on these costings it will be possible to compete in either of these markets where the product is on sale at a price substantially less than our costings would suggest it is possible for us to accept with any prospect of success.
Lastly, I think all the facts that I now lay before the Parliamentary Secretary are already in the possession of the Minister for Industry and Commerce. While I do not, for a moment, question his good faith in this matter, I think it would have been somewhat more disingenuous if he had told us plainly and bluntly that these costings had been submitted to him and that he just did not accept them; that he preferred the calculations of the Sugar Company and Bord na Móna to the computations of those who have reported their experiences to him. I think he also had a duty to tell us on his own initiative that the advices he had received from the Department of Agriculture were of so sulphurous a character he thought it better to ignore them.
I really wish to see any enterprise to which the Parliamentary Secretary puts his hand in the general sphere of his activities meet with success. I would be sorry to see an enterprise of this kind initiated in Bangor-Erris with the best intentions in the world, subsequently folding up simply because it could not pay its way. I would prefer to see it continue as a fifth alcohol factory which makes one's heart turnover every time one looks at it. I would ask the House to remember that we already have in Ballycroy an alcohol factory. I do not know what the cost of the production of industrial alcohol is at the moment, but I would remind the House that on the last occasion on which I had an opportunity of knowing what the cost is we would have saved a substantial sum of money per annum if, instead of operating the alcohol factory, we had blown it up, dumped all the potatoes in the Atlantic Ocean and paid the wages of the employees in full in perpetuity.
Let us not initiate in the Gaeltacht another enterprise of that kind. We must bear in mind that the Parliamentary Secretary has said that in dwelling on the costings of this enterprise, we must have regard not only to grass but to certain other crops to which they may ultimately put their hand. One of these is peppermint for the extraction of oil. I think he told us that in large areas of the United States of America this crop has practically perished as a result of disease. I have no reason to believe that such diseases are endemic here but I am bound to tell the House that while I was Minister for Agriculture two or three entrepreneursapproached the Department to seek our encouragement for the launching of such enterprises. Acting on the advice of those qualified to advise me, I was bound to say to each of these that while the Department would be anxious to help them in any way it could, no encouragement for the prosecution of such enterprises could be given since past experience had proved that attempts to grow these oil-bearing crops, such as lavender, peppermint, linseed and so on, had not been attended with any substantial degree of success.
Our experience notwithstanding, most of these crops have been tried in England. Apart from some small operators, who have never shown any evidence of developing into millionaires, as one would expect them to do since they enjoy a monopoly of an immensely valuable market, there has been no large-scale success in the cultivation of these crops in Great Britain so far as I can recollect. I do not knowif these facts have been brought to the attention of the Parliamentary Secretary, but I think he ought to examine them closely and, in justifying this Financial Resolution to the House, reassure us that he has examined the submissions and, having weighed them to the best of his ability, is determined on the merits to disregard them.
