A Leas - Cheann Comhairle——
Private Members' Business. - Price of Wheat Offals—Motion (Resumed).
Debate resumed on the following motion:—
That the Dáil disapproves of the action of the Minister for Industry and Commerce in increasing the price of home-produced wheat offals to that of imported offals, thus imposing, since September, 1954, an additional burden on pig feeders of over £600,000, to the detriment of the pig industry—(Deputy Corry).
Would the Deputy not await the arrival of the Minister?
He must be funking it.
When the guardian of the farmers took his departure——
It depends on who is standing.
I move the adjournment of the House for a quarter of an hour to give the Minister time to attend.
The Chair is not accepting that motion.
The fact that we are now talking to an empty front bench shows the interest which the Minister has in this matter. I suppose he is out counting the money he took from the pig feeders. When I was dealing with this matter on Wednesday last I read two statements made by the Minister in this House giving the amount that was actually taken in this manner, and the amount taken from the pig feeders amounted to £617,000 from the 31st August, 1954, to the 31st February, 1956. One would expect when a condition of affairs would arise——
On a point of order. I understand that this motion relates to the Department of Industry and Commerce and that the Minister for Industry and Commerce is in the precincts of the House. I think it is treating the House with the greatest disrespect if he is not here. As a matter of fact there are scarcely 20 people in the House.
I am informed that the Minister is on his way in.
As I said, the reply given by the Minister for Agriculture, when I called his attention to this last week, was that the Irish farmer had the opportunity of having access to wheaten offals from any part of the world where they could be most cheaply bought, free of duty. That was his statement, but in looking up the trade returns I find that the average price of offals imported into this country during the past 12 months was £24 10s. per ton. The price of home offals, if we take it in August of 1954, was £20 per ton. I take it that was the economic price of home offals at that period. Due to the activities of the present Government by a reduction in the price of wheat by £5 per ton those offals should be available to the farmers to-day at £18 per ton. If the price of imported offals was £24 10s. one would expect, if the Minister was doing his job or if he was not anxious to collar this money from the pig producers, that he would say: "We have one lot at £24 10s. and another lot at £18. We will level up and sell them at £22." Instead of that I find that the prices of wheaten offals were, in February, 1955, £27 10s.; March, 1955, £27 10s. There was a drop in May, 1955, to £26 10s. and the price continued around £26 10s. until January, 1956, when it went to £25 10s.
The Minister for Agriculture also informed me that the price of pig ration was reduced. In September, 1954, pig ration was sold at £30 per ton and it continued at £30 per ton up to January, 1955. It increased to £31 in February; in March to £32; and in April, 1955, to £32 10s. It dropped, then, to £31, and then up to £30 10s. at present. That is 10/- higher than it was in September, 1954. There is no reduction in that, but when the Minister for Agriculture was putting an enforced reduction on the barley growers of this country, his cry was that he had to consider the man feeders. "I have to consider the man feeding the pigs," he said, "therefore, I will not fix any price higher than 40/- per barrel for feeding barley."
He took £4 per ton off the barley growers of this country by that enforced reduction. He used that cheaper barley for the purpose of extracting at the other end money to pay for the flour subsidy. That is the way the Minister worked his manæuvres. Now we have cries from everybody in the House from the Taoiseach down for increased agricultural production. Why, they ask, does the farmer not produce more? They say that the only hope for this country is an increased agricultural production.
Hear, hear!
The activities of this Government in that line in particular are shown here in the trade statistics returns. They are a very pretty lesson as regards agricultural production in this country. I am confining myself in this instance to the particular purposes for which those offals are used. The number of sows for breeding purposes from 1954 to 1955 has dropped by 19,757. The total number of pigs has dropped by 159,476. You have practically a 20 per cent. reduction in the number of sows and 16.6 per cent. reduction in the total number of pigs. The Minister for Agriculture, again in reply to me—I had better not misquote him—as reported at column 964 of Volume 154 of the Official Report says:—
"The fall in pig production has resulted from a reduction in the price for pigment exports to Britain following the reduction during the past two years of 31/- per cwt. deadweight in the guaranteed price for British home produced pigs."
One would think that if the Minister for Agriculture had the slightest interest in pig production, or in the protection of the people who are producing pigs, he would say to his colleague, the Minister for Industry and Commerce: "Now look, you must stop robbing the pig producer; you cannot continue increasing the price of the pig producer's offals artificially."
The Minister for Agriculture is now sitting as mute as a mouse while the pig producers of this country are being robbed of £617,000.
Is this for the local paper?
It is for your attention.
The Minister is not here.
Why did he run away?
The Deputy might take a bit of interest in the matter for the sake of the pig producers in his constituency. Those are facts which can be found in the Minister's own statement in this House. His statement was that the receipts of the flour millers have been increased by £617,000 by increasing the price of home offals to the level of imported offals. Surely, if the Minister for Agriculture has any further interest in the unfortunate agricultural community that he is supposed to represent in this House, he would take some steps to prevent his colleague from carrying on this kind of game. The Minister for Agriculture admitted here that there was depression in the pig industry. He gave as the reason for the 20 per cent. decrease in the number of sows in 12 months the reduction in the price of pigs.
One would think that if there was a reduction in the price of pigs there would follow a reduction in the price of pig ration, which could have been decreased by £6 a ton without any loss. It was not reduced. The Minister for Industry and Commerce continued to extract his pound of flesh apparently with the full approval of the guardian of agriculture. That is the position of affairs here. Were the Parties opposite joking and was the Taoiseach joking when he appealed to the agricultural community to increase production? The Minister for Agriculture himself tells us here that he wants more pigs and more pig production so that, I suppose, he could sell more offals at a profit of £6 a ton to the Exchequer. Is that not where the money is going? I want to be clear on one thing. This money, got in increased receipts by flour millers through the simple expedient of increasing the price of home offals to that of foreign offals, is going to the flour millers. It is used by the Government to maintain the reduced subsidy on flour. It helps to save the Exchequer the money it would have to pay otherwise.
In plain language, flour is being subsidised to-day, not by the Department but by the pig breeder of this country, by the man who produces the pig and fattens it. He is the man who is subsidising the flour. If you have any doubt about that you can see the Minister's own statement in the House on the matter. The Minister for Industry and Commerce stated in this House on the 23rd March, 1955, that it was originally calculated that the reduction in the prices of flour and bread from the 1st May, 1954, would be approximately £900,000. In actual fact the reduction was to cost £927,000 against which could be offset items amounting to £550,000, leaving £372,000 to be provided under this sub-head. The chief offsetting item is receipts by flour millers from the sale of wheat and offals, over and above the amount originally estimated.
On a point of order, is it in order for Deputy Corry to repeat a complete column of a report which he has already quoted on this same motion? It is column 1114 of last Wednesday's debates.
Acting Chairman
The Deputy is entitled to quote as long as he does not overdo it.
It is a sore point. I do not know how the unfortunate Minister was fool enough to make that statement. He must be very innocent in his job. He was asked to explain where this money came from and he said it came from an increase in the price of offals from £20 to £23 a ton in September, 1954, to £24 10s. per ton in December of 1954.
Acting Chairman
I would like to remind the Deputy, in all fairness, that he has already quoted that in column 1114.
I only want to show the efforts being made by the Minister's Department to cloak this matter.
Acting Chairman
The Deputy has already repeated it and it is on record here.
The price increased to £26 a ton in February this year so that a further £170,000 resulted from increased sales by the millers. That amount went to offset the £927,000 that we were to find for the flour subsidy. When I anxious to find the total amount collected in this way, I put down a question a fortnight ago and then on the Adjournment I got the probable amount of the subsidy payable for the financial year to August, 1955, as £431,000 and from September, 1955, to the 1st February, 1956, as another £186,000. So that, out of the total of £927,000, £617,000 is being contributed by the pig breeders of this country.
I have often heard my colleague, Deputy MacEntee, and other city Deputies wondering how they would get income-tax out of a farmer, but Deputy Norton has found a way to get income-tax out of the pig breeder that he will never forget. This is income-tax, surtax and all the other taxes on top of them, so much so that he has driven the pig breeder out of production and lost to this nation in 12 months over £3,000,000 worth of pigs. I wonder, Sir, did this matter ever come up before the Executive Council and did the gentleman paid to act as guardian of agricultural interests in this State make any protest in regard to this matter?
Acting Chairman
The Deputy should refer to him as the Minister.
Did the Minister who is supposed to be the guardian of agricultural interests in this State, ever make any protest to his colleague, the Minister for Industry and Commerce, in this matter? This matter evidently has continued up to the 1st February this year and, from the reports I have got from the merchants and the millers, the increases have continued since then.
My argument is that, even if they were so caught out for cash that they had to make a dive into the pockets of the pig breeders, one would think that when they found out the result of it, when they found out that the pig breeder had given up keeping pigs, that they would have made some effort to put a stop to it by the simple expedient of reducing the £26 per ton which they are charging the pig breeder to £3.
There is another very extraordinary thing about these offals which I cannot understand. We were told that the price of wheat was reduced on account of the cheapness of foreign wheat coming in. If foreign wheat can come in so much cheaper, how is it that the skin of the wheat cannot come in cheaply as well? How is it that I have to pay from £24 10s. to £26 a ton for foreign offals, for what is left after the flour is extracted from the wheat? We would not have to pay that to the foreigner if the 159,000 acres of wheat which were driven out of production in this country last year were allowed to be grown here. There would be no need then to import offals at £24 10s. a ton.
More is being paid for the offals than is being paid the farmer for his wheat. Of course, that is economics, as practised by the mixum-gatherum across the floor. Had I got any kind of assurance, as I expected to get an assurance, from the Minister that this robbery would cease when I put down the question, I would have been satisfied. I would have been satisfied, for instance, if I found that they did this only for a few months in order to help the Exchequer.
How long has it been going on?
It has been going on for 18 months, according to the Minister, and it was the Minister who answered the question.
Is the Deputy sure it has not been going on longer than that?
I do not mind. It is not worrying me. But there is the result of it. If there was ever a tale of woe written on increased production here it was written by the Central Statistics Office when dealing with the activities in agriculture of the Government opposite. I would advise the Cabinet to go down and read that document and study it. If the Ministers are blameless and if they are not carrying out a definite policy to reduce production rather than to increase production they will change their tune. Nobody but a madman would carry on the activity that has been carried on in Industry and Commerce in relation to this particular item. Nobody with any brains would do what has been done.
It has been insinuated by the Minister that this had been done before ever he had responsibility. Mark you, when the number of pigs was 958,321 in 1954 the Irish farmer was getting 82/6 per barrel of wheat and 48/- per barrel for his barley. I happen to have had the misfortune of being on two deputations to the present Minister in connection with the price of barley. On each occasion he held up his hands in holy horror and said: "I have to think of the small farmer with the 15 acres and the five children"— those were his words—"who is depending on the fattening of his pigs for a livelihood." That was the stick used by the Minister for Agriculture to depress the price of the farmers' barley by £4 per ton.
Having depressed the price of barley by £4 per ton, he then gave a tip to his brother-in-arms, the Tánaiste, Deputy Norton, how to find a very easy £500,000, and the £4 per ton that was taken off the farmer, instead of being transferred to the poor farmer with the 15 acres, the wife and five children, was transferred to the Exchequer to reduce the flour subsidy. That is where the money went. Where then was the Minister's sympathy and his deep interest in the poor farmer with the 15 acres and the five children? Where was his interest then? What did he do to protect that farmer and his livelihood when the price of his pig was reduced, in his own words, by 31/6 per cwt.?
What did he do to protect the farmer? Even though the Minister for Industry and Commerce may have silenced him and made him mute as a mouse, surely there was some court of appeal. He could have appealed to the Taoiseach to stop the daftness, as he would term it, of the Minister for Industry and Commerce. Why did he not do so? Why did he leave this unfortunate small farmer with the 15 acres and the five children thrown off the pig's back and under the sow's belly? That is what he did with him. Why did he sacrifice him? He sacrificed him because the Minister for Finance wanted money.
I cannot see any justification for what has been done in this case. It was the most scandalous procedure ever adopted. I would say only one thing to the Minister for Agriculture in relation to it: If he had any decency he would get out, instead of living as a silenced priest in the tabernacle of the inter-Party régime. He would get out before letting down the people for whom he sheds salt tears, the people of my area who live by tillage, the people who live in an intensive grain-growing area. These people come looking for an economic price for their produce to find themselves skinned so that the Government may adopt this method of getting funds. Surely they could find someone better off from whom to extract money instead of extracting it from the small farmer with the wife and five children to support. He is the man they robbed. They did not rob the big farmer in relation to this; they robbed him in the price of barley; they robbed the small man in the price they charged for the pig ration.
I do not wish to pursue this matter further. I have put the case as fairly as I can and I would like to hear the reason why from someone over there. I do not want to occupy all the time of the House and I will give the people on the other side all the time they want to answer.
I second the motion.
This, of course, is a completely frivolous motion, and what have been passed on to us by Deputy Corry as facts are not facts. One would imagine that the pig was almost extinct in Ireland, but from my own figures there are now 739,000 pigs in the country. When Deputy Corry's Party left office after 17 glorious years there were 457,000 pigs. In other words notwithstanding the unfortunate drop in the pig population to which he referred, we are still 282,000 better off than we were when Deputy Corry's Party was in office.
At the end of a European war.
Just in case Deputies might believe the war had something to do with it, let me remind them that the war was over for two years. In 1945, the number of pigs was 426,000 and in 1948, when Fianna Fáil left office they had succeeded in raising that a mere 30,000. The second point about it, and a very important point, is that if Deputy Corry went to the Dáil Library and looked up the departmental Orders he would discover that neither the Department of Industry and Commerce nor the Department of Agriculture fixes the price of milling offals and that these milling offals are sold for whatever the miller can get for them. They are sold in competition with the price in England and in Europe generally. In other words our farmer, has as good a chance of getting home produced or imported offals at a cheap price as has the Dane, the Dutchman, the Englishman or anybody else.
With regard to the general situation, Deputy Corry covered in his motion everything from wheat to pigs. There is not the slightest doubt that they are interrelated. As my friend on the far side reminds us, it is very interesting to see what did happen during the war. It is most interesting to observe the Emergency Powers Orders that were passed from 1942 onwards to look after the pig producer and the wheat grower. It has been proved since that wheat to our total requirements will be grown in this country so long as you pay the farmers. But during that period, when there was a scarcity of various things, including wheat, the price of wheat and the price of barley —and barley is the raw material for the pig industry—was fixed, but for the first time ever since an Irish Government sat in Dáil Éireann—there was put on the Irish farmers' produce, not a minimum but a maximum price. The maximum price for Irish barley in 1942 was 35/- a barrel, so that you could buy your wheat, and your oats along with it, at 50/- a barrel when there were no fertilisers, no combine drills, no combined harvesters, and when the farmer had to go to C.I.E. and the G.N.R. to have it brought in for him. The Emergency Powers Order which I quote is No.274 of the 1943 Statutory Rules and Orders.
In 1944 the same figures continued. The yield in money to the Irish farmer for wheat per statute acre, according to the average price, was £9 15s. and the miximum price for barley was 35/-. As a result the wheat was grown in the worst land. One did not know where to put it and it was put in the wrong place by price. Barley was not grown at all and the number of pigs went down from 434,000 in 1943 to 380,000 in 1944, and in 1945 there were only 426,000 pigs. In 1945 also 55/- was paid for wheat. Fianna Fáil made quite sure it would be grown and they said they would make the farmers grow it. They made quite sure the farmer would not get the opportunity of making a profit by again putting a maximum price on his barley of 35/- per barrel.
In 1946, with the war over and the ports open, Fianna Fáil gave 55/- for wheat and a maximum price of 35/- on barley. In 1947 they gave 55/- for wheat and raised the maximum price on barley to 40/. Remember, it was a penal offence to pay 41/- a barrel for Irish barley and as a result the pig population in 1947 was 456,000. In February, 1948, the present Minister for Agriculture came into office and he did two things. In the first place he removed the maximum price on barley so that it found its natural price. Secondly, he broke the milling ring and made it a fact that any farmer who wished—of course not many avail of it but it is always there if they want it— can buy six tons of maize delivered to the nearest railway station at the same price as Banks can buy it. He broke the ring and made it possible for every farmer in the country to get the raw material for his pig industry at the same price that his counterpart in Denmark, in Holland or in England could get it.
As a result of that, coupled with the fact that the home-produced offals were supplied at the same price as they could be obtained from abroad, our pig population rose from 456,973 in 1947 to a total in the year 1954, as quoted by Deputy Corry, of 998,000, an estimated figure not yet confirmed. It is the greatest contribution that has been made to our pig industry. There has been a recession but that recession has had its effect not only in Ireland but in Great Britain. The reason for that recession is perfectly obvious, and it is specialisation. The day of the man with the three pigs and the five pigs is becoming daily more difficult. That is because with modern pens, with modern feeding techniques and with improved knowledge it is possible for one man to look after many hundreds of pigs penned in the proper way. As everybody, including Deputy Corry, knows you can get three lots of pigs out each year from the bonham stage if the job is done properly. The position may be different in Denmark, in Holland and in Britain where the profit may be as low as 10/- a pig. Our farmers have not become skilled to that extent and our pig production is suffering because our profits are not proportionately large enough to merit the keeping of five, three or two pigs. That recession, I am certain will end. I have the utmost confidence in the Irish farmer and I believe he will improve his methods and arrive at the stage when he can compete with the Dane, the Dutchman and the Englishman.
Deputy Corry must thank the Minister, who is the guardian of the farmers of Ireland, in that he very wisely related our pig agreement to the prices paid to the British farmer because that means that for the next three years we can put our pigs into London, Birmingham or anywhere we like as well as, and at as good a rate as, the British farmer and that the Dane is excluded. There is a 10 per cent. embargo placed on the Dane. He must pay 10 per cent. duty before he puts his pigs or pigmeat on the British market. Why was this duty imposed by the British Government? Because specialisation on the Continent of Europe has brought matters to the stage where, in fact, the Britisher could not compete for his own market and therefore, he also was suffering a recession in his pig trade.
With regard to whether or not it is a fact that more was being charged for our offals here than the price at which they could be obtained abroad, I have not got a great number of figures. I have one. It is the price of brans and pollards as quoted in the current trade journal. This, of course, refers to large shipments, c.i.f. at the port of Liverpool, on 8th December, 1955. These were in shiploads, before they came off the boat, before they were bagged, wholesaled and before they reached the farmer: Argentine pollards, £23, 17s. 6d.; North African pollards, £23 15s.; South African pollards, £25 15s. In the same month we are supplying our pollards to any farmer who wants them, who calls on any Irish market, at £24 10s. Why? Because, obviously, the man who wants to buy pollard can buy it better at £24 10s. at the Dublin port or any other mill than he can import it at the price quoted c.i.f. Liverpool.
If we have our milling offals at the same price as the Englishman, the Dutchman and the Dane, what more can we get? What did Fianna Fáil ever give? What did Fine Gael ever give? We come right back to the infamous procedure in 1952. In 1952, Deputy Walsh, who, unfortunately, is absent to-night, guaranteed a price of 48/- per barrel for feeding barley. I would like to see the price guaranteed at 68/- for feeding barley, if such were possible without detriment to any other section of the farming community. Deputy Walsh, in his innocence—he is a very honest man; I do not want in any way to take from his character or his effort—went to the millers, employed them and paid them commissions to try and store and to put up all the feeding barley on offer. When the harvest was over and the stocks had been accumulated some test stocks were weighed and it was discovered that all the dried barley there was in that harvest had been used for their own purposes by the millers, to supplant maize in their pig and fowl rations and for milling in their general compounding and that all the wet barley had been sent to the Government, metaphorically, but put into store in the millers' premises at 48/-. In fact, Deputy Walsh had succeeded in losing—and again I quote the actual figures—on 36,000 tons of Irish feeding barley, a figure of somewhere between £225,000 and £250,000.
Here is the salient point. It comes right back to the question as to whether or not we subsidise pig feed. Having lost that money, I assume he had to go to the Cabinet, of which Deputy MacEntee was a member, and ask for a subsidy on it because the money had to come from somewhere. It had cost, in relation to its equivalent weight of maize, from £225,000 to £250,000 more than an equal quantity of maize. What happened? He was told to go and get it off the farmers to whom he gave it. Instead of getting it from the particular farmers to whom he gave it, all he could do to produce £250,000 was to put a levy on every ton of maize and every ton of barley sold in this country for 18 months, so that every woman who went to the shop and bought a stone of layer's mash and every man who went to the shop and bought a hundredweight of maize paid his levy until Deputy Walsh had recovered the £250,000 with which he had thought to buy the votes of the corngrowers. He is not fooling anybody.
Is it the fairer thing for the present Minister for Agriculture to say: "I will stop all imports of maize?" He did stop all imports of maize to the three ports in Cork and Waterford at one stage when the millers in that area were not paying a sufficient price for feeding barley. Is it the fairer thing for him to say "I will stop it? Do not sell your barley unless you get your price for it and I think it will make more but, if you are stuck with it, I promise you that the worst thing that can happen to you—and mark you it is a floor, not a price—is that I will give you £2 a barrel for it." Is that not the fairer way to do it? He succeeded in making as much as 45/-. The miller who paid that had to use it instead of maize and any loss that accrued, accrued to the miller. The miller had to pay it because he was selling his compounds per week and had to get barley to supplant maize and the present Minister would not allow him to import the maize. Is that not the fairer situation? I think it is.
I have mentioned the fact that specialisation abroad has been a factor in this whole situation. It is relevant to ask what has the present Minister done to help the pig feeder. I will tell you. He has instituted pig progeny testing. While he waits for his pig progency testing station, which cannot be built in a day, he has instituted a pig progency testing section in the Department of Agriculture and reference to last year's Estimate will show that in a small lot of pigs in this country better or as good results have been obtained as have been obtained with the Danish landrace. Allied with that, he has seen to it that these offals are produced and given to the farmer at an equal price to what the Dane, the Britisher and everybody else are paying.
Six pounds a ton more than the price at which they can be produced here.
Deputy Corry says £6 a ton more.
Yes.
That is the very same argument used by that entire Party. With regard to the price of the rasher of bacon, if the price goes up, there is a shout; if the price goes down, they keep it very quiet. If the price of offals goes up in the normal way, when the Britisher, the Dane and the Dutchman are paying more, there is one hell of a shout but when the price of offals fluctuates seasonally on the corn markets of Europe and comes down, will Deputy Corry come in then with a motion? I do not think he will. As a matter of fact, I am prepared to bet anything in the world that he will not. He will not come in with a motion that will be politically inexpedient. That is the position. No other situation can be envisaged.
I wish again briefly to refer to this series of Emergency Powers Orders. Notwithstanding an important recession, there are 280,000 more pigs in this country than there were when Fianna Fáil left office. The reason for that is that Fianna Fáil deliberately depressed the price of barley during the entire war. That was done deliberately by Fianna Fáil so that they could get wheat at 50/- and 55/-, which was the price at which they felt they could buy votes. Deputy Corry would buy a vote with a barrel of wheat all round the country to-day if he got a chance but he will not get it because the truth will precede him.
That is all I desire to say on the motion except to add that I have the utmost confidence in the farmers of Ireland that they will come from behind—undoubtedly from behind—and compete with the Danes, the Dutch and the British in their own field of pig feeding. So long as the Minister, during the season and after the season, excludes maize from the market and allows the Irish feeding barley to be bought at fair prices and drafted into the pig feeding industry; so long as he allows milling offals to be sold as cheaply here as they are available anywhere in Europe, I have the utmost confidence in the Irish farmers. I wonder whether Deputy Corry has that confidence or not. I certainly have it and I believe they will not fail us.
The Deputy who has just sat down would, I suppose, claim to represent agricultural interests in this House. He has just suggested that the Irish farmer should do the same as the Danes are doing and be prepared to take 5/- or 10/- profit on a pig. But he did not tell the House that the Danes are getting the offals at the price at which they are produced in Denmark.
Untrue.
He did not tell the House that this benevolent Government and this Minister for Industry and Commerce see fit and well to charge the Irish farmer £6 per ton more for wheat offals—a profit to the Government of £6 per ton. Wheat offals are costing this country or the millers or the Government, £6 per ton less than the price at which they are being sold back to the farmer. The farmers of this country and the pig producers are entitled to get those offals at the cost of production.
In September or August of 1954, an extraordinary attitude was taken up by the present Government three months after they had taken office. The present Taoiseach during the election campaign of 1954 guaranteed to the farmers that commitments in respect of wheat prices by the Fianna Fáil Government would be honoured. They honoured them in a peculiar way, by cutting the price of wheat by 12/6 per barrel to the farmers. Following on that announcement the Minister for Industry and Commerce, with the connivance, I am sure, of the Minister for Agriculture, decided that the farmers were getting wheat offals too cheaply and that he would charge them £6 per ton more than they were costing, that is for offals from wheat at the reduced price.
Not satisfied with that, by an Emergeny Powers Order the price of bacon was reduced by the action of the Minister for Industry and Commerce. At the same time, the price of offals went up by £6 per ton, and although in the last 18 months the price of bacon, by Order of the Minister, has been varied at least a half-dozen times, not once in that period did he change the price charged for offals. The pig producers are entitled to get those offals for what they cost, for what the farmer producing the wheat is paid for them and what it costs the miller to produce them, not at the price at which wheat offals can be imported from the Argentine or any other country. Consumers of potatoes are entitled to get them at the market price here; similarly people who feed pigs are entitled to get the offals. There was no authority from this House allowing the Government to charge up to £30 per ton for wheat offals. It was extraordinary that we had a campaign in 1954 and 1955 suggesting that the price fixed by the Fianna Fáil Government of £32 per ton for wheat was too high, that the country could not afford it, and that wheat was reduced to £28 per ton and then the farmer was charged £26 for the offals coming from that wheat. We are paying, I understand, up to £30 per ton for imported offals——
That is untrue.
——and it seems now to be the policy of the present Government to pay the foreigner, the men in the Argentine, in Iraq or in Iran, up to £30 a ton for wheat offals while paying the Irish farmer only £28 a ton for wheat. Is that the policy Deputy Donegan stands over?
The statement is untrue.
Deputy Donegan has already spoken and Deputy Allen is in possession.
Is Deputy Donegan saying that the Minister for Industry and Commerce is entitled to charge the Irish pig feeder £6 a ton more——
That is nonsense, of course.
It is not nonsense.
You cannot read figures.
It is your own statement.
Get a blackboard and show him.
We need neither blackboard nor chalk.
You are not getting on so well without them.
Emergency Powers Orders were used to reduce the price of bacon to consumers and that was one of the ways in which the cost of living was reduced by the Coalition Government, thereby depressing the price of pigs to the pig producers. When pigs fell by 31/- per cwt., there was no bacon for export. We are now able to consume all the bacon we produce and the pig prices to producers here are reduced to the prices they pay for subsidised bacon in England. I dare say that could be claimed by the Minister for Industry and Commerce—that he reduced the price of bacon—and increased the price of offals at the same time. Is it any wonder that the number of pigs have fallen in the past 18 months by 159,000?
They never fell to what they were in your time.
They never fell under Fianna Fáil.
You could not see a pig when you were in office.
The Minister knows nothing about feeding pigs, not a ha'porth. So long as he got a cheap rasher on his breakfast table, that is all he is concerned about.
The Deputy must put vinegar on his rasher.
That is the luck of the game. This motion is an important one for the agricultural community; it is an important motion for the nation because the plea has been made to increase production. Surely the Minister for Industry and Commerce cannot claim he has given any aid to increasing agricultural production. He lent his hand as a member of the Government on reducing the price of wheat and therefore in decreasing the output of that product. He made special Orders decreasing the price of bacon, thereby decreasing the price paid for pigs to the producers, at the same time he made special Orders increasing the price of offals. He succeeded in one year in getting over £600,000 into the Exchequer.
I have often heard it said by people who are not farmers that the farmers should be made pay income-tax. Everyone realises, I feel sure, that there is not a lot of brains or ability among the Coalition Government but I will give them credit for the fact that they can devise ways and means of extracting income-tax from the farmers in such ways as by reducing the price of wheat to the tune of £3,000,000 and by increasing the price of offals by £600,000. I have not calculated what the reduction of 31/- per cwt. in the price of bacon has cost the farmers.
And yet the Deputy's Party lost the by-election in Kerry.
We are concerned in this House with the interests of the agricultural community. No flippancy on the part of the Minister will get away from that fact.
Sure he is getting industries in America.
Foreign cows have long horns. Before any of these industries, which I hope the Minister will succeed in getting in here, will be liable to pay income-tax——
That has nothing to do with the motion.
——the farmers of this country who are carrying the biggest burden on their backs under a very hostile Government and a hostile Minister for Industry and Commerce will have been asked to shoulder still more. The Minister for Industry and Commerce comes in here, proud that he is able to give the people he represents cheaper bacon on their breakfast tables. He contributed something to the cost-of-living reduction at the expense of the farmers and at the expense of agricultural production. In a time of normal conditions, he has succeeded in retarding pig production by 19 per cent. He should be quite proud of his achievement. The boots must have been changed in the Front Benches of the Government because when they sat there before as a Coalition in 1948, the Minister for Agriculture said that Labour were as mute as mice.
A misquote.
That was said by the selfsame Minister for Agriculture who is now himself as mute as a mouse. When the Taoiseach goes down the country appealing for increased agricultural production he should appeal to his second in command to take his hands off one section of the agricultural community—the small farmers with the 15 acres and the big families who are now producing most of the pigs in the country. Most of our pig production now is being accomplished in ones, twos and threes by cottiers and agricultural labourers. The big commercial fattening concerns are gone because they realised that not alone was there no profit for them but that there were big losses.
We now have an extraordinary condition for which the Minister is probably not responsible. We have four grades of pigs going into the factory and only one grade coming out. I met a woman in a market town who had gone into a large grocery shop looking for grade B bacon. Her husband had sold a couple of pigs which had been graded B and for which he was paid a price 25/- a cwt. below what he might otherwise have got. The grocer had told her that he had never heard of the grade. There is no doubt about it—and the Minister should appreciate it—that since he started tinkering with the industry, the bacon factories have made colossal fortunes.
That does not seem to be relevant to the motion.
Perhaps not, but it is relevant to the fact that there has been a 19 per cent. reduction in pig production in 18 months, due to the benevolent Government. I do not know what answer the Minister can make, apart from the stock one used by Deputy Donegan that the Minister is entitled to adjust the price of offals produced here to that charged for foreign offals. When Deputy Walsh was Minister he arranged that, if the price of home offals was £23 a ton and the price of the foreign commodity was £26, that the farmers would get offals at £24 10s. a ton.
That is not true.
I do not think Deputy Donegan is aware that he is charging Deputy Allen with stating an untruth. I think that is unparliamentary.
It seems to me that it is not necessary for Deputies to agree with him.
I assert it is true.
And I that it is not true.
I think Deputy Donegan might accept my statement of which I am quite sure. We believe that the Minister should accept this motion. There can be nothing wrong about it.
Except that it is untrue.
The people who eat beef in this country get it at its market price. The Government does not get £600,000 out of it but because a section of the farming community, which is producing bacon, is comprised of small farmers they must be penalised. The farmers are being penalised by the cutting of the price of an important cereal which they grow and for which Fianna Fáil paid £32 a ton. We did not think there was anything wrong in paying £32 a ton for full wheat but this Government cut it down to the price which you have to pay for pollard from the Argentine. That is all that the farmer in this country is allowed for wheat. He was growing too much of it. Thousands of tons of maize, pollard and bran are coming into this country and no one can deny that whole wheat would have made as good a pig feed as pollard or bran from the Argentine. It is better worth £32 a ton for feeding to pigs than pollard from the Argentine at £26 a ton. Can Deputy Donegan deny that?
The Deputy is deliberately misleading the House about the prices.
I do not think the Deputy should use the words "deliberately misleading".
The Deputy is misleading.
In 1954 we had 95,475 breeding sows in this country. At the end of 1955 we had 75,000 that was minus 19,757, or 19.81 per cent. Boars are an important section of the pig-breeding industry and we had 2,134 of them in 1954. Now we have fewer than 1,900 or a reduction of 8.7 per cent. Of pigs three months old and upwards we had 397,000 in 1954 and we had 339,000 in 1955. That is a reduction of 14.5 per cent.
What is the Deputy quoting?
I am quoting from "Live stock on the 1st June, 1955." They were that much fewer on the 1st June, 1955, as compared with the 1st June, 1954, which was about the date that the Minister took office. Of pigs under three months old, we had 409,484 on the 1st June, 1954, and we had 377,711 on the 1st June, 1955, which is a reduction of 81,773 or 17.8 per cent.
We must have eaten them.
What justification was there for a reduction of that number of pigs in 12 short months or what brought about that reduction? We have the Minister for Agriculture boasting about the fact that we have the great British market available to us. He asserted that for the next three years we will get the same price for our pigs as the British farmers get for theirs. He asks: "What else do we want?" What else do we want but the same price for the pigs that the British farmers are getting and that the Danes and Poles are not getting? The Minister for Agriculture knows that the Danes, who are exporting bacon to the British market, are getting their offals in Denmark at whatever price these offals are produced in Denmark. The Danish Government is more concerned about its farmers than in the collection for the Exchequer of about £600,000 a year at the pig producers' expense. It is no wonder that agricultural production is falling in this country. The Minister has had to fall back on the Emergency Powers Regulations that I have heard him condemn time and time again. He is using them now to drive the farmers out of pig production.
That is not true. There is no control at all.
There is no doubt about it. The Minister came in here in September, 1954, when he was two months in office and when something had to be done to reduce the cost of living. The very first section he struck at was the pig producers of this country and he struck again at the same section by increasing the price of pig feed.
We did not do what your Party did in 1932.
He has struck at them at least half a dozen times. Deputy Crowe can get up and support the Minister for Industry and Commerce. However, I am sure that Deputy Crowe is concerned about the small farmers on the hillsides of Tipperary but he knows that when he meets any of his neighbours he can say: "What can I do? The Labour Minister for Industry and Commerce is there and he must do something to please his people." I have every sympathy with Deputy Crowe because he is in a hot corner. There is no doubt about that, when he has to meet the small farmers from the hillsides of Tipperary and try to explain to them that his leaders decided to throw in their lot with the Labour Party and form a Government.
I do not know how Deputy Crowe comes into that.
I want to try to explain to Deputy Crowe why it is that the farmers have had to go out of pig production.
Debate adjourned.
The Dáil adjourned at 10.30 p.m. until 3 p.m. on Thursday, 8th March, 1956.