Dáil Éireann díospóireacht -
Thursday, 6 Mar 1958

Vol. 165 No. 8

Committee on Finance. - Vote 27—Agriculture.

Minister for Agriculture (Mr. Smith)

I move:—

That a supplementary sum not exceeding £3,007,000 be granted to defray the Charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1958, for the Salaries and Expenses of the Office of the Minister for Agriculture, including certain Services administered by that Office, and for payment of certain Subsidies and sundry Grants-in-Aid.

The Supplementary Estimate, which has been circulated to Deputies, indicates that the amounts estimated at the beginning of the year for a number of sub-heads of my Department's Vote have proved inadequate and that there has been a deficiency in the estimated Appropriations-in-Aid. The total amount needed to meet the additional expenditure and short fall under those headings comes to £3,507,400. There will, however, be a saving estimated at £500,400 under other sub-heads, leaving a net additional sum of £3,007,000 to be voted by the Dáil.

Under sub-head B, £5,000 extra is required to meet increased rates of subsistence granted during the year and also additional travelling expenses incurred in dealing with outbreaks of swine fever and in the extension of the bovine tuberculosis eradication scheme.

An additional sum of £5,000 is required under sub-head E (1) to cover the cost of stocking Backweston farm and a new farm adjoining it, which was acquired last October. These two farms will be worked as one unit and will be used primarily for the breeding and propagation of nucleus stocks of seeds of various kinds.

A token provision of £10 has been inserted under sub-head E (5) for the purpose of broadening the ambit of the sub-head to cover the cost of investigations on "Virus S" in potatoes. This virus has been identified in other countries as the cause of a serious potato disease and has recently been observed in this country. Investigations into it will be carried out by the Plant Pathology Department of University College, Dublin, and it is estimated that the cost can be met from savings in the provisions already made for wheat midge and eelworm investigations.

An additional sum of £10,500 is required under sub-head G (2). The funds made available under this sub-head in recent years for the purchase of stock bulls for leasing to cattle breeders was limited for reasons of economy. It is, however, essential for the sake of our important live-stock trade that bulls of the highest possible quality should be available and the additional money now required will enable the purchase of an increased number of bulls of high quality. This will benefit not only the breeders themselves but the cattle trade generally.

A supplementary sum of £17,500 is needed under sub-head J for the purchase of lands at Tully, County Kildare. These lands, containing 674 acres, are the major part of the lands occupied by the National Stud Farm but have hitherto been held by the Department under a yearly tenancy only, terminable on six months' notice.

The demand for ground limestone has been greater than was anticipated at the beginning of the year. It is expected that total deliveries to farmers this year will reach the record figure of 1,250,000 tons, and an additional sum of £60,000 is required under sub-head M (8) to meet increased delivery costs.

Under sub-head M (13), an additional sum of £717,000 is needed for payments to the Pigs and Bacon Commission arising out of the scheme of support prices for exports of Grade A bacon.

Deliveries of pigs to the bacon factories here have been at a high level during the last six months, deliveries during the period April to December, 1957, totalling about 826,000 pigs as compared with 614,000 pigs in the corresponding period of 1956. It is expected that deliveries will be maintained at a high level during the coming months and that total deliveries of bacon pigs in the current financial year will be approximately 1,150,000 as compared with 815,000 in 1956-57.

As a result of the increase in the numbers of pigs reaching bacon factories, relatively heavy shipments of Grade A bacon are being made under the scheme. During the period April to December, 1957, a total of approximately 190,000 cwt. of Grade A bacon was exported. It is expected that a further 127,000 cwt., approximately, will be exported in the January-March, 1958, quarter, bringing total exports of Grade A bacon in the current financial year to 317,000 cwt. as compared with 46,700 cwt. in 1956-57.

The bacon market in Britain has been very depressed in recent months, mainly as a result of exceptionally large supplies of British and Danish bacon and a marked improvement in the position cannot be expected in the near future. The price realised for Irish bacon in the British market, which averaged about 275/- per cwt. in the first eight months of 1957, has recently been as low as 210/- to 230/- per cwt., necessitating a subsidy of £5 to £6 per cwt. on Grade A bacon exports. Because of the present slump in bacon prices in Britain and having regard to the prospects for the next few months, it is probable that the actual realised average price for our bacon in that market during the present quarter will not exceed 236/- per cwt. and during the whole of the current financial year will not exceed about 250/- per cwt.

On this assumption, the total cost of subsidising Grade A bacon exports during this financial year will amount to about £1,325,000. There was a balance of £258,000 in the subsidy fund on the 1st April, 1957, and proceeds from the special levy on bacon pigs during the year will amount to £280,000, leaving a balance, to be provided by way of Exchequer contribution, of £787,000, which is £717,000 in excess of the sum voted.

Swine fever has persisted in the country through the year, and an amount estimated at £62,000 is required for the payment of compensation at full market value of all pigs slaughtered as a result of outbreaks of the disease and for concomitant expenses.

An additional amount of £2,544,000 is required under sub-head P. This additional provision is mainly for recoupment to the Butter Marketing Committee of losses incurred on exports of creamery butter produced in the seasons 1956 and 1957.

The original provision of £666,000 was intended to cover (1) balance of home-market subsidies on butter— production and sales allowances—up to 8th May, 1957, after which date such subsidies were discontinued; (2) cold storage allowances payable to creameries and the Butter Marketing Committee on the storage of butter for winter use; and (3) Butter Marketing Committee losses on the export from 1st April, 1957, of creamery butter produced in the 1956 production season.

The Butter Marketing Committee's losses up to 31st March, 1958, on the export of butter of the 1957 season's production account for £2,229,400 of the present Supplementary Estimate. The balance of £314,600 is required to meet (1) the balance of home-market subsidies on butter up to 8th May, 1957; (2) cold storage allowances paid to creameries, and (3) Butter Marketing Committee losses on the export after the 1st April, 1957, of butter produced in the 1956 season.

It is estimated that for a number of items under sub-head R there will be a gross deficiency of £105,500 in receipts brought to account during the year. This shortage has been mainly accounted for by the fact that expenditure on some of the services in respect of which recoupments are obtained from the American Grant Counterpart Fund will be lower than had been expected. Creameries have not availed of grants towards the cost of pasteurisation installations for separated milk to the extent allowed for in the original Estimate, and it has not been possible, owing to staff difficulties, to avail fully of the grant for technical assistance. When however, account is taken of the normal variations which occur from year to year as between amounts estimated and amounts realised in some of the numerous items which make up this sub-head and the definite prospects of increased receipts under some of them, it is estimated that the net deficiency in receipts will be £85,000.

Mr. Dillon

I cannot help expressing some surprise that the Minister introduced a Supplementary Estimate, a part of which consists of subsidies, allowances, and so forth for dairy produce amounting to £2,544,000 in the first week of March, without giving us any indication of what his intentions are in respect of the year which began on 1st March. The Minister would have done us a service, if he had availed of this occasion to state to the creamery industry that it was intended to maintain the existing price structure for the coming year, because there is a good deal of malaise in the country which I think it is right to say at this stage is probably unfounded. I anticipate that the Minister will face the situation and deal with it in a sane way as it would be a catastrophe for the country if any other approach were made.

I want to avail of this occasion to emphasise to the House what appears to me to be a very important and fundamental economic fact, that is, that the value of a subsidised export produced in this country is substantially the same as, if not greater than, a protected industry to the national economy. I want also to direct the attention of the House to another aspect of this question—that where, for the development of an agricultural export for which there is virtually an unlimited market, we assist it with an export subsidy, every penny of that subsidy appears upon the records of the annual Estimate and the House is informed to the last farthing of what is charged to the community in respect of that industry.

When you bear in mind that industrial tariffs are levied on hundreds of industrial products in this country and that the result of each industrial tariff is to authorise the industrial producer to charge the consumer some margin in excess of the current world price of his product, you will realise that each of these tariffs represents a charge upon the consumer in this country of a substantial annual sum, but with this profound difference, that, in the case of an industrial project, it is a silent charge. It is never measured; it is never recorded; it is never brought to the attention either of the consumer or of the taxpayer of this country.

However, if, in the reverse procedure, in order to promote not domestic consumption but exports, without which the nation cannot function, we give a corresponding aid to agricultural production in the form of an export subsidy, every penny of it appears on the records of this House, and for no more significant reason than that the machinery requires that the money shall be drawn into the Exchequer, on the one hand, and paid out to the producer, on the other hand; whereas, in the case of the industrial tariff, the charge is never drawn into the Exchequer, but the producer receives the proceeds of the charge and the domestic consumer or taxpayer pays it, nonetheless.

I know that some people associate with the procedure of assisting the agricultural industry through periods of wild fluctuation on world markets the allegation that that procedure can properly be described as "dumping." I do not know what that means. Certainly, in the case of butter, nobody in Ireland wants to sell butter cheaply in Great Britain or anywhere else. We will sell butter wherever we can get the best price for it. Our aim, wherever we offer butter, is to get the highest price the consumers are prepared to pay for it. However, it is not within our power to control the price of butter on foreign markets. We have not the slightest desire to dump it anywhere. We are quite prepared to co-operate in any plan to regulate markets and ensure that butter may sell at a reasonable price in world markets, if anyone will combine with us to that end. It is fantastic to say that when we offer top-grade butter on foreign markets, and accept the best price that salesmanship can secure for it, the process can fairly be called "dumping".

I have been amazed at the claim made that discriminatory tariffs should be levied against Irish butter on the ground that Ireland was not a traditional exporter of butter to the British market. Happily, in Article I of the 1948 Trade Agreement, there is an acknowledgment by the Government of Ireland and the Government of Great Britain that Ireland has always been one of the traditional suppliers of the British market in butter. I think we are entitled to register some surprise that the fact should be challenged by some country which I do not think had been discovered when Ireland first started shipping butter to Britain. But I suppose that, in the difficult marketing circumstances of the world, strange allegations are liable to be made, and I do not wish to dwell further on that aspect of the present situation beyond saying what I have said.

I want to put this on record; let it be put on record in public; it is necessary that it should be put on record in public. I believe that those who appear to affirm in public here that the maintenance of an economic price for butter producers in this country is a departure from economic rectitude unparallelled in the world, are ignorant of the fact that over the last 18 months or two years the Government of New Zealand has spent approximately £12,000,000 maintaining the price of butter exports from New Zealand to the world markets. I do not profess to be able to follow all the complications of the various financial devices operated by countries on the continent of Europe who are in the butter export market, but I have not the slightest doubt that by a variety of devices butter prices are being maintained in those countries with very little regard to the amounts realised by them for butter on their export markets.

It requires protracted study—and very often the essential facts are not available—to detect how those export subsidy schemes operate in continental countries; but it is certain that it was not Ireland that knocked the bottom out of the butter market in Great Britain. I think I could say on whom the responsibility for that rests. I do not think it expedient to be more specific in that regard, but I believe that, in an ill-considered desire vigorously to compete with margarine in the British market, certain exporting interests spent vast sums of money artificially to depress the price of butter, to bring it into more vigorous competition with margarine, oblivious of the fact—which they might well have borne in mind—that while it is very easy to knock the bottom out of the price for an international commodity like butter, it is often extremely difficult to put the bottom back. Nobody can charge this country with any attempt to demoralise the foreign markets in butter and nothing we do at the present time can fairly be described as a contribution to that demoralisation.

Here is something to which I wish to direct the attention of the Government most emphatically, and I speak with some knowledge, as I think the Minister knows. I am convinced that there are certain interests who compete with us in the British market who would be glad to see us permanently withdrawn from that market and who would cheerfully bear the extreme difficulties in which they now find themselves, if they thought that the future held for them the compensation of our disappearance from that market. All our resources now should be deployed to ensure that that effort will not succeed. I want to warn this House that butter and bacon are, at the moment, relatively marginal exports for us. Our great mass of export is cattle on the hoof and on the hook, but if the economic life of this country is to survive it will survive as a result of the success that attends our effort further to expand our export of live stock and live-stock products—and by these I mean principally cattle, pigs and bacon, butter, wool and other animal products.

I rejoice to think that when Fianna Fáil was warning us two years ago and when Deputy Childers, as he then was, was thundering from this bench that the bottom had fallen out of the cattle market and that we ought to accept it as inevitable, and when Deputy Vivion de Valera was speaking from that bench there, to say that he and the Irish Press were merely forewarning the farmers of Ireland of the steps they ought to take for their own protection—then, as Minister for Agriculture, I advised our people that where they kept five head of cattle in the past they should keep seven in the future, where they kept ten head of cattle in the past they should keep 14 in the future and where they kept 20 head of cattle in the past they should keep 28 in the future and that if their equipment did not enable them to milk them all, to let the calves suckle the cows. Those calves are going out to-day at £66 apiece—and if they were not, the economic life of this country would be in a state of utter chaos.

I emphasise that because when we look at the state of our competitors who would wish to see us driven out of the British market for bacon and butter, let us not forget that whatever burden these subsidies may represent on us at the present time, we have the massive prop besides of our cattle exports. They have not. Their existence depends on bacon, butter and eggs. We know what the international egg market is like. We appreciate, in respect of our very limited exports of butter and bacon, the cold draught we feel in that regard presently; but we shelter happily under the splendid protection of a thriving and expanding live-stock industry. We exported last year—let us recall the figure— 830,000 cattle, worth £45,711,000. Last year we exported beef and veal— fresh, chilled and frozen—worth £6,000,000.

Faced with the problems involved in holding our place in a market where there is ample scope for great expansion in bacon and in butter, I welcome the silence of the Minister for Agriculture, because I interpret it as a clear indication that at the Fianna Fáil meeting held in this House last night he told the Deputies, or the Deputies told him, that there must be no interference with the creamery industry if the economic life of this country was not to be irreparably disrupted.

I welcome the announcement to-day by the Minister for Finance that the Book of Estimates will not be with us until Monday, as I interpret that to mean that perhaps there was some change of mind, that evil counsels were rejected and that prudence has prevailed; but I hope that before this debate concludes the Minister will go on record as agreeing with me that we should hold our place in the British market for bacon and for butter and that we should not recoil from any exertions necessary to make it possible for our people to continue and to expand that absolutely essential element in our economic life.

I note that the amount of ground limestone distributed this year has reached a record figure, 1,250,000 tons, and I direct the attention of Deputies to the visible consequences of that scheme and the land rehabilitation project. I remember that Fianna Fáil did not think much of either of those schemes when they were initiated.

Mr. Smith

We forced the lime scheme on you.

Mr. Dillon

I rejoice to discover that they now not only adopt them, but, in part at least, claim to have begotten them, a most edifying attitude for a foster father. I should be very happy indeed to share the paternity of these schemes with any member of the Fianna Fáil Party who has repented of his past irresponsibility. Lest, however, in the future, the bad thoughts that clouded their minds in the past should recur, I should like to direct attention to columns 598, 599, 600, 601 and 602 in Volume 165, No. 4 of the Official Debates of 20th February, 1958.

I will give myself the pleasure of reading out some of these figures which were provided by the Taoiseach on my request, because I think they may be fairly described as being in large part the result of the policy adumbrated by the Government of which I was a member in 1948, the cornerstone of which was the land rehabilitation scheme, the lime scheme and, finally, the removal of the tariffs from superphosphates, all of which were directed towards increasing the carrying capacity and output of the land of Ireland. How far did that fail or succeed? That is a question we ought to ask ourselves when we are called upon to vote additional money under sub-head N (8) for the distribution of ground limestone. Can we do it with a clear conscience? I think we can and I think these figures will confirm that view.

In 1947, on well-nigh 600,000 acres of land—mark the acreage—we produced 1,468,000 barrels of wheat; in 1957-58, on little more than half that acreage of land, about 350,000 acres, we produced 3,220,000 barrels of wheat. In 1947, we exported no bacon or ham at all; in 1957, we exported £4,300,000 worth of bacon and ham and the bulk of it was fed on skim milk and barley grown on the soil of Ireland. In 1947, we exported 482,000 cattle for which we got £15,600,000—I am speaking in round figures; in 1957 we exported 830,000 cattle for which we received £45,700,000. In 1947 we exported 14,000 cwt. of beef and veal worth £78,000; in 1957, we exported 530,000 cwt. of beef and veal for which we received £6,000,000.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

Will the Deputy say how these exports arise on the Supplementary Estimate?

Mr. Dillon

Every one of them arises out of the lime scheme and the land project.

General MacEoin

And he has asked the question: is that money well spent?

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

I would point out to the Deputy that, on a Supplementary Estimate, it is not usual to have a general discussion on agricultural policy. That is reserved for the main Estimate.

Mr. Dillon

Surely we must ask ourselves are we right in spending money on the limestone scheme?

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

The Deputy is dwelling on the limestone question too much.

Mr. Dillon

I would not like to make the Leas-Cheann Comhairle a short answer, but I was six years Minister for Agriculture, and I must know something about limestone.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

I do not want to restrict the Deputy, but I think he is going outside the ambit of the Estimate.

Mr. Dillon

I cordially endorse the appropriation for limestone because I anticipate that the Minister's aim is to facilitate the farmers to get the limestone and spread it on the ground. I am satisfied that, in that aim, the Minister is not actuated by a desire to change the colour of the grass. He hopes the rain will wash the limestone down into the grass and that, as a result of that procedure, there will rise up out of the ground mainly grass, barley and beet which would not rise up out of the ground if we did not put the limestone into it. I am sure the Minister does not want to see grass grow for the purpose of decorating the horizon. He hopes live stock will eat the grass, that farmers will cut the grass and make silage of the grass.

What reasonable consequences do we expect to flow from that? I want to reassure the Minister that one of the consequences of cattle eating grass that grows out of limestone is that they give milk, provided they have had a calf. The consequence of their giving milk is that the milk is brought to the creamery. I want to direct the attention of the Minister to the fact that, in 1947, we brought only 154,000,000 gallons to the creameries, but as a result of the limestone scheme, in part at least, in 1957, we brought 289,000,000 gallons of milk to the creameries.

Therefore the expenditure on the limestone which made the grass grow and which fed the cows and resulted in the milk being brought to the creameries is, in my opinion, justified. I think the Minister will agree with me that if we stopped bringing the milk to the creameries, and did not investigate what experience has shown to have been successful we would be engaged on a futile inquiry. But when we appreciate that from the increased cartage of milk to the creameries our production of creamery butter rose to a record figure in 1957, we shall all feel satisfied that the output of lime was amply justified, always provided that at this crucial hour the Government will not get cold feet and inform the farmers that because they have succeeded in increasing their output of butter they are to be treated differently from the industrial exporters. We have provided that anyone who increases industrial exports shall be free from all income-tax on the profits arising therefrom. It would indeed be hard on the farmers if they were to be told that not only are they not to be relieved from any increased taxation, but that they are to be heavily penalised for the success which has attended their efforts on the export market.

I think it would be unreal if we turned our minds from the whole problem which confronts the pig and bacon industry, because there is a problem. We ought to dwell, when voting the money which this Supplementary Estimates provides for— £717,000—on the fact that the industry itself has provided approximately £500,000 in this year through the levies made in the course of this year and the proceeds of the levies that had accumulated from last year, to help the stabilisation of the price of bacon on the British market. It is natural and right that a lot of people must ask themselves what are the prospects. Are we to see the price of bacon further declining? The Minister says to-day that he sees no immediate prospect of an improvement. We have got to bear in mind that the present prices ruling on the British market are mainly due to massive imports of bacon on to that market.

If we are dismayed by the price differential that exists between our cost of production and the price received in Great Britain I think we ought ask ourselves what are the reactions in other countries where bacon is being produced for sale on the British market as well, more especially bearing in mind that some of these other producers have no other exports than butter and eggs. I have not the slightest desire, and I am sure that nobody in this Oireachtas has the slightest desire, to maintain a price war either with the British farmer or anybody else. We would welcome a reasonable price level on the British market, not a famine price level nor a panic price level, but we have no desire whatever to prosecute a price war and attempt to drive anyone out of the British market and their fair share of it.

At the same time we should make it clear that no combination of producers in any other exporting country need entertain any hope whatever that by the massive deployment of their financial resources they will succeed in driving us out. The sooner that is said, and the sooner it is clearly made manifest that that is our intention, the sooner we may anticipate that the present demoralised state of the bacon market in Great Britain will itself disappear. So long as there are people who believe that if they make the pace hot enough they can induce us to throw in the sponge, the pace may well be made hot. But the sooner it is brought home to their minds that, while we have no desire to engage in a price war, nobody is going to deprive us of traditional markets, the sooner may we expect some return to a price level to make producers produce more bacon and have a modest profit on honest labour, efficiently and expeditiously done.

I would be grateful if the Minister when concluding would tell us what is the current percentage of Grade A pigs going to the factories. I think I am right in saying that when we first introduced grading some years ago the percentage was running at about 56 and rose to 63 per cent. I think that is a good percentage but I should like to see it rising to 70 per cent. I think that if we are to reach a reasonable objective, it would be that 70 per cent. of all pigs reaching the factories were Grade A, and I think we shall reach that percentage.

In that connection I should like to ask the Minister what has become of the Progeny Testing Station at Cork. I see under "Appropriations-in-Aid" that one of the deficiencies is for £6,390—"Receipts from sale of bacon/ pigs at Pig Progeny Testing Station (sub-head E (7))." So far as I am concerned, when I was leaving office 12 months ago, the Pig Progeny Station was finished structurally. There were some alterations to be made in the ventilation or something like that, but has it not been possible to put the station in operation yet? I know that I myself was concerned and felt I was open to rebuke in this House, that I had not had the station operating before I left office. I think a matter which the Minister should explain to us is how in the last 12 months he has not brought it into operation. I know that progeny testing on a restricted scale has been proceeding at Ballyhaise but that is something very different from what we had hoped for when the Pig Progeny Testing Station was operating in Cork.

I notice that there is certain additional money for seed testing, propagation and certification. It is so regularly the habit of anyone in this House to hurl whatever bricks he can put his hand on, that it is no harm to pass on some good news when one gets it. I was told recently by a farmer who was sowing a very large acreage of wheat this year that several of his neighbours had sought out and secured supplies of seed certified under the Department's seed certification scheme because their own experience had taught them that the difference in yield, consequent on using Department certified seed, far more than compensated for any additional price charged for it. I should like to congratulate the Minister on the quality of the seed bearing the Department's certificate and I think it is a matter upon which other Deputies might, with propriety, record their experience and their neighbours' comment. I did not catch —it was my fault—what the exact potato disease was.

Mr. Smith

It is a disease known as Virus S.

Mr. Dillon

It is certainly very necessary that the research resources of the universities should be employed in investigation of any disease of that kind. If past experience is any guide, whatever can be done will be done in that research office of the Department which, under Professor McKay, has an international reputation for applied and pure research.

I do not want to trespass upon the time of the House by referring to wider matters as these can be properly reserved for the main Estimate, but I do think the Minister could, and should, avail of this occasion to give the House at least some general indication on the lines which I now urge, both to pig producers and milk producers, that for the next 12 months they can anticipate stability at present price levels.

When the Minister is dealing with that, I should be grateful if he would reaffirm that the arrangement under the existing price stabilisation scheme for pigs continues, in that the price guaranteed for Grade A pigs is expressed to operate for a term of six months, and that there is no change possible without six months' notice to the producers. The Minister has announced the change from 235/- to 232/- to operate from 31st July. May I assume that the producers are guaranteed that no other change will be announced without a similiar six months' notice?

Mr. Smith

I thought that was made clear in the announcement that was made to the Press.

Mr. Dillon

There is no harm confirming it.

Mr. Smith

I am not a person to change my mind so often.

Mr. Dillon

No need to be cross about it.

Mr. Smith

I am not cross.

Mr. Dillon

I think Deputies will agree with me that his confirmation now is a material contribution towards stability, and if the Minister shares my apprehension that a great many sows are coming to the factories——

Mr. Smith

It is not my information.

Mr. Dillon

I want to add this. Perhaps my voice, added to that of the Minister, may contribute to a result which I have no doubt he and I earnestly desire. I want to say, with great deliberation, to the pig producers of this country, that they should not be panicked into throwing their sows upon the market, selling them for less than their value, and sending them to the factories for slaughter, because it is the people who keep their sows now who will do well in the long run. It is the people who jump in and out of pigs in this country who lose money. Those who stay in it usually come out on top in the end. My strong advice to the pig producers of this country, particularly in view of the assurance that there is a continuing guarantee of six months available to them, is to stick to their pigs, in the conviction that their market will continue to receive a fair modicum of support and, if we are going through a difficult time now, the future may be a very great deal brighter than at present appears possible.

Mr. Cunningham

I want to refer briefly to the subsidy for the export of butter. As Deputy Dillon has rightly said, we cannot control the price of butter on the foreign market, but we can do a lot more to influence the price of our butter when it is sold in England and elsewhere. We are spending this very large sum to export butter and, on the experience which I have from travelling in both the Six Counties and in England, I can say we are not getting one penny worth of advertising value from all this money. We have a large number of Irish people in England, Scotland and Wales who know the excellent quality of Irish butter and who would be very anxious to purchase it. It is first quality butter, and can compete with any other butter imported into the British market, but what is the position in regard to the butter which we are exporting, and have been exporting for the past 18 months? As far as I can see, it is that, in order to effect a saving, a great deal of that butter is being sent to and sold in the Six County area. There is no indication whatsoever that it is Twenty-Six County, Republic of Ireland creamery butter. It is wrapped in the wrappers of the Six County creameries. There is no point in our trying to build up an export in the Six Counties for our butter.

In regard to Great Britain, the situation is even worse because it is being sold there unwrapped and in bulk. So far as I know, there is no indication given in England that the customer is purchasing Irish creamery butter. Though we are spending this very large sum, we are falling down seriously on the marketing of our butter in the export markets. On the other hand, our competitors in the British market are taking full advantage of our weakness. The Danish people must be spending very large sums in advertising their product in Britain. Buses and placards all carry advertisements proclaiming the merits of Danish butter. We do not do that. Again, in the presentation of their products, the Danes are very far ahead of us. They are selling butter wrapped in tin-foil on the British market. They are selling it in wrapped tin-foil pound and half-pound packets.

Mr. Dillon

When it was brought in here, you called it "Dillon's yellow butter", and you would not eat it.

Mr. Cunningham

The whole matter needs to be examined into very strenuously because the present situation is not fair to our farmers who are producing first-quality butter. It is not fair to our people who are paying for the export of this butter that our butter should not have, when sold over there, at least a trade mark or some other indication to show that it has been produced in this country. I suggest to the Minister that he should go into this question of advertising our butter in the export market, because as far as I can gather there is a difference. Even with the slump in butter, to which Deputy Dillon referred, there is a big difference between the price we are getting in the British market and the price the Danes are getting. I understand that some weeks ago our price was about 2/3 per lb., whereas the Danish price was 2/10 per lb. While it is true that we cannot control the price, we could, by proper sales methods, advertising and the proper presentation of the product to the customer, influence the price and in influencing it, improve it.

Mr. Wycherley

It is only a few short years since we had to import large quantities of butter from Denmark and New Zealand and the stench of that butter is still fresh in the nostrils of the vast majority of our people who were obliged to consume it. I am glad the Minister has introduced this Supplementary Estimate because it shows his appreciation of what the dairy farmers have done in that short time. They have responded to the call of the people and the Government and increased production, thereby enabling our own people to eat their own first-quality butter. It is certainly a remarkable achievement to have increased production to such an extent in such a short time. That increased production is due to the hard work and industry of the dairy farmers and to the long-term guarantee which the dairy farmer got for his produce.

I sincerely hope we shall have another long-term guarantee from the Minister now so that our farmers will not be left in the dark. At the moment there is too much speculation because of uncertainty as to what will happen the price of milk and the dairy industry generally. In such an important industry as this—perhaps the most important in our economy—it is hardly right or fair to keep the dairy farmer in suspense. He has to plan ahead. I sincerely hope the price of milk will not be reduced. We had an assurance from Deputy Dillon that it will not be reduced, but I would much prefer to have that assurance from the Minister.

The price of milk must have some relation to the cost of production. A technical expert who came over here to inquire into the cost of production of milk has proved that the cost is 1/9¾ per gallon. Milk production deserves all the support this Government can give it and the Minister should make it known at the earliest possible moment that there will be no reduction in the price of milk. Should there be a reduction, I have no hesitation in saying that, before two years are out, Danish and New Zealand butter will have to be imported again because our dairy farmers will not produce milk at an uneconomic price. They have no control over the cost of production. The cost of production is fixed by the Government, by the county council increasing the rates and by other factors over which the farmers have no control.

We have now to grapple with the eradication of bovine tuberculosis. That will be a heavy expense on the dairy farmers because of the cost of replacements. These replacements will be a mighty burden on the dairying industry and it would be a retrograde step if the Minister saw fit now to reduce the price of milk by even one farthing.

The dairying industry is the greatest industry we have, if figures count for anything. I asked the Minister last week the number of employees engaged by the creameries and the Minister informed me there were roughly 4,500 employees directly employed in the creameries. I am sure there is no other industry giving employment to approximately 4,500 people. All these enjoy a good standard of living. If there is any interference with the price of milk, I have no doubt that some of these employees will automatically lose their employment because milk production will go down, purchases of stores will be reduced and employment in the dairying industry will decrease.

Now, in addition to those 4,500 directly employed by the creameries, there must be hundreds of thousands employed in the production of milk, in the production of butter, cheese and all the other subsidiary commodities. This is, therefore, a very important Estimate in relation to a very important industry and the sooner the Minister makes his plan known to the dairy farmers, the better it will be for the economic future of the country. If the farmer is assured of an economic price for his milk, he will get more heifers in calf; he will build up his dairying herds, these herds which are the corner stone of the future economy of the country; we will have more cattle for export, more cheese, more butter, more pigs, more poultry, all founded on the dairy cow. I would like the Minister now to make known his long-term policy, so that the dairy farmer can plan ahead, secure in the knowledge that the money he invests in this very important industry will reap for him at least a meagre reward. It is not sufficient to do it for one or two years because the life of a cow could be ten or 12 years.

I should like the Minister to make it known that he will guarantee the dairy farmers an economic price for milk for the next five years. This would be an incentive to them to get rid of their tubercular cattle, to buy in good T.B. free heifers and to put them in calf. It would help to increase the prosperity of the country by having more cattle, sheep and everything else for export.

Progress reported; Committee to sit again.