Deputy Corry gave notice of his intention to raise on the motion for the Adjournment the subject matter of Questions Nos. 72 and 74 on to-day's Order Paper.
Private Members' Business. - Adjournment Debate—Price of Barley.
When raising this matter originally to-day, I expected the Minister would have rectified what is evidently a mistake. In regard to barley, the Minister said that anything over 20 per cent. moisture should suffer a reduction. He did not, however, advert to what would become of the man who sent in barley with 17 per cent. or 18 per cent. moisture. Unfortunately, last year all that barley was paid for as if it contained 20 per cent. moisture and there was no difference in the price.
I should like to call the Minister's attention to this fact. Messrs. Arthur Guinness and Son in dealing with malting barley had a cut of 1/- per 1 per cent. in regard to barley containing over 20 per cent moisture and gave an increase of 1/6 per 1 per cent. in regard to barley with a moisture content of under 20 per cent. In other words, Messrs. Arthur Guinness and Son, when looking for a good article, were prepared to give a bonus on it.
The Minister also stated in his reply that the c.i.f. prices quoted for imported barley were from 35/6 to 40/9 a barrel. The question of feeding barley has a pretty long history. In 1951, the late Deputy Tom Walsh, God rest his soul, as Minister for Agriculture, fixed the price of feeding barley at 48/-.
Not at all.
He fixed the price of feeding barley at 48/- and the price of wheat offals at 20/-. He succeeded in holding both feeding barley and wheat offals at that price during the full period he was in office.
If that is true, why did the Deputy not reply to Deputy Tadhg Manley?
Then we had a change and the price of feeding barley was cut to 40/- a barrel in order that the price of wheat offals might be safely increased and on the public statement made at the time by the then Minister for Industry and Commerce, Deputy Norton——
We are discussing the administration of the present Minister in respect of the price of barley. I hope the Deputy will keep to that.
I am keeping to it very strictly.
I have my doubts about it.
The result was that on the admission of the present Minister for Industry and Commerce there was collected from the pig feeders £1,096,000. I was told that went towards the relief of the flour subsidy. Now there is no further need for getting money for the relief of the flour subsidy as the flour subsidy is gone.
What about relief for the pigs? The pig is getting it now.
I do not know where the Minister got the figure of 35/6 to 40/9 as the price of imported feeding barley. The only thing I can rely upon is the Statistical Abstract in respect of October last which tells me that 683,000 cwt. of foreign barley were imported at a cost of £840,502, which was exactly 49/2 per barrel. I am not worrying about what is offered for something you do not want to buy. Those are the only figures I can find in relation to the price of imported feeding barley at present. Accordingly, if the Minister was anxious to bring the feeders more into line with the price of imported barley, his headline should be 49/2.
What is happening the feeder—the man who feeds the barley? I should like to give a small instance of that. In an Order made by the Minister last month or perhaps early this month, Grain Importers are allowed to charge £28 per ton for the barley they purchased at 40/-. I have here a circular which was sent out in that connection and it states:—
"We have now received a direction from the Minister for Agriculture relative to the disposal of stocks of barley held by us and in accordance therewith, as from 17th February, 1958, orders for barley may be solicited on the following terms and conditions:—
(1) The selling price until further notice to be £28 per ton ex store or delivered buyers' nearest working railhead.
(2) Net cash against invoice.
(3) Buyer to provide sacks and delivery to be taken within seven days.
(4) Orders for minimum lots of six tons and maximum lots of 500 tons shall be accepted."
Who issued that circular?
It is from R. & H. Hall, Limited, Grain Merchants, Library House, Cork.
It is all lip service.
Let us follow this up a little. I had the pleasure of meeting a barley buyer who bought barley last harvest and sold it. He gave me this information. He sold his barley to those people last December after reducing it to 16 per cent. moisture. He sold it to them at 48/- per barrel with the instruction that he was to hold the barley in his stores at 3d. per ton per month storage charges. He told me that the cost of drying 20 per cent. barley down to 16 per cent. is 3/- per barrel and the loss in weight 4 per cent., amounting to 2/- per barrel. That barley stood him at 45/- a barrel. He sold it to Grain Importers at 48/-. He got 3/- for his trouble, but Irish Grain Importers, after buying it in December, in the month of February, issued a circular charging 56/- a barrel for barley they bought at 48/-. I should like to know a little more about why this should happen.
The pig feeder whom this reduced price is supposed to benefit now gets the 40/- barley at 56/-, plus the ration makers' profit, for this is now bought by the gentlemen making the ration, and it would probably amount to 65/- by the time it goes into ration. This is the cheap barley. I wonder what price per cwt. should we get for the pig if we have to pay 65/- a barrel for barley? Is there any justification for this? Is there any prices board or commission to control the price of the barley that was bought from the farmer at 40/- and is now being resold to the pig feeder at 60/- or 65/-?
We will be able to bring the pig down quickly enough.
I hate to see people making fools of themselves. That is the position as I view it. That is an example for the Minister of what is happening. I do not think the miserable cut of 3/-, from 40/- to 37/-, is justified. The 3/- was for the fellow who bought the barley and who got 48/- for it when it cost him 45/-. The other gentleman does not even handle it, but leaves it in the buyer's store, and I understand Grain Importers are a non-profit-making concern—
Who set it up?
You left them there. Grain Importers Limited leave the barley with the buyer and make money on it. If I buy six tons of it, I take six tons from the buyer and they get the difference between 48/- and 56/-. To be honest about it, I think that is going a little too far. Last year, wheat offals were imported at about £18 per ton as against the £26 paid the previous year. Since that is the situation, I suggest to the Minister that he could revise his price and I would appeal to him to show some consideration for the man who carries out good farming. If he did, he would bring about very pleasing results. The average moisture content of barley delivered to Messrs. Arthur Guinness last year was less than 18 per cent. Where is the incentive for a man to have his feeding barley moisture content down to 18 per cent? If he tests for moisture himself, he will probably have to spread it out in the rain to catch the extra 2 per cent. water because if he loses the 2 per cent. moisture, it will cost him roughly 1/- a barrel. He loses that in any case if he is paid only on 20 per cent.
I know of no buyer last year who took that into consideration in purchasing barley. They carried out the instructions all right in fining for barley over 20 per cent. but they did not give a halfpenny extra to those who brought it in at 17 per cent. or 18 per cent. moisture content. The Minister should make that revision of the prices and give at least the same. If the grower is to be fined 1/- for every 1 per cent. over 20 per cent. he should also get a 1/- more for every 1 per cent. under 20 per cent. in the barrel. That is as fair as I can make the case.
I should like the Minister to make a complete investigation into the activities of the gentlemen who succeeded in increasing the price from 48/- to 56/-.
Surely not again? We have heard that twice before.
I would urge the Minister to consider that seriously because I believe the farmer who finds his barley price cut to 37/- a barrel will find some use for his land other than growing feeding barley next year. It will not happen this year because unfortunately the farmers did not know about it until the land was ploughed. After the next harvest, the Minister will be able to make full use of Irish Shipping Limited to bring in feeding barley, but I promise him he will not import it at 40/9 or 35/- a barrel.
It is a pity they did not make the Deputy Minister for Agriculture.
The Minister is entitled to the full time to conclude.
I have a lot more to say.
The Deputy sat down.
I want just two minutes. Deputy Corry mentioned a price of 35/- per barrel for barley. I grew some barley at one time when Deputy Corry and his colleagues had a lot to do with the fixing of the price of barley. They fixed the price of barley at 35/- a barrel notwithstanding that the brewers were paying 72/- for imported barley. There was nobody to come into Dáil Éireann then to raise the matter. Now it suits Deputy Corry to come in——
That is an entirely different matter.
——and to pretend that he is embarrassing his own Minister. He is no more embarrassing his own Minister than he is embarrassing me. I did not think that I would stay here voluntarily to listen to Deputy Corry but I did stay to listen to him "ochoning" and "ochoning."
The Deputy is not making an argument.
It is new procedure for a Deputy on the other side of the House to raise a matter on the Adjournment with his own Minister. That was brought about by Deputy Corry simply and solely to try to tell the people of East Cork, whom he promised exactly this time 12 months ago another 10/- a barrel on the price——
That is not the question before the House.
I will be here gazing at your vacant seat as I have looked at the seats of many who came before you.
Is the Minister too embarrassed to reply?
Deputy Corry must recognise that there are counties in Ireland that do not grow barley at all.
I am trying to protect the Minister's right to time to conclude.
There are counties like Monaghan, Cavan, Leitrim, possibly Mayo and a few other counties who have to buy barley. The farmers in these counties must be considered because they have to feed pigs and poultry. When the Minister was fixing the price he had to consider these people who purchase barley. Small farmers in Monaghan have to buy everything that their poultry and pigs eat and the major part of that feeding stuff is barley. The big farmers put in a lot of wheat and barley but our farmers are concerned with feeding pigs; barley is a big factor in that connection. The Minister, being from Cavan, knows that these Northern farmers do not grow barley and that barley costs them a big price and he had consideration for them when fixing the price. Barley is considered the most suitable feeding stuff for producing bacon. The Minister took all these things into consideration when fixing the price.
Of course, he did not reduce the price of pigs at all.
I was hoping that I would not be called upon to speak on the subject of cereals to-night because we are having a five-hour discussion to-morrow. Part of the case which Deputy Corry made is very near my own mind and my own way of thinking. He cited the case of barley bought in the green condition by Grain Importers at £2 per barrel being offered now at 48/-.
56/-.
48/-.
56/-.
Grain Importers are offering barley to the compound mixers at £28 a ton.
That is 56/- a barrel.
£28 per ton. That cost them £20 per ton.
It cost them 48.
I am trying to tell the story in a simple way. One of the reasons why I dislike the whole idea of fixing a price for barley is that, in order to make it effective, there must be some semi-State organisation to give colour and effect to any price fixed. Then that State organisation has to rent premises at the highest cost, borrow money and pay interest on it. When all that is added up, the barley that was purchased by them in order to put a floor on the price of barley and to give reality to the price that was fixed, if sold now to customers in Monaghan, Mayo and all the other centres where the compound is made for the type of user to which Deputy Mooney has referred would have to be charged for, not at the rate of £28 a ton but £29 5s. a ton. Before fixing or naming a price, in my discussions with the representatives of the National Farmers' Organisation and others who have views to express on this question, I left them in no doubt as to what my general attitude was towards this matter.
What is feeding barley other than a feeding crop? What is feeding barley other than the raw material of other industries? What is feeding barley but a little more important and a little more valuable than oats?
A little more? A lot more.
A little more valuable and the area in which it can be successfully grown is very much more limited.
Nowadays?
Any day.
Come off it.
We do not know as much as the Deputy but we know a little on this subject. While all this discussion about fixing barley prices has gone on, what has happened to the oats crop? While the acreage under barley has increased, the acreage under oats has decreased.
It has been displaced.
It has been decreased, with the result that the millers and the people who are grinding and providing the very limited amount, these days, of oatenmeal used by our people could not get enough oats to make that oatenmeal without coming to me for a licence to import oats at a time when we had surplus wheat and had barley on our hands.
Will the Minister look at his files in connection with that and he will find that we offered his predecessors to grow that under contract and they refused?
You will get £30 a ton for oats at the moment.
I shall have an opportunity at another time to deal with this whole matter in a much more comprehensive fashion. I am not in the least embarrassed by the decision I have taken nor am I in the least embarrassed when I say, in conclusion, that if I should happen to be alive this time next year, I shall revert to the line of thought which I held before I named a price at all this year for barley because, in order to give effect to any price, you must have some organisation that will come into the market for barley after the harvest time and, in order to do that, you must have some State organisation such as Grain Importers. When you call upon a State organisation to intervene in that kind of business it means additional costs which ultimately fall on the shoulders of those who use the commodity for conversion into a finished product. I do not agree with that policy and will make myself far more clear, I hope, on another occasion, in this House or outside it, before any audience or any jury of farmers or otherwise.
The Dáil adjourned at 11 p.m. until 10.30 a.m. on Thursday, 27th February, 1958.