asked the Minister for Industry and Commerce whether he will request the Government to reconsider their decision in respect of the purchase price to millers of imported wheat with a view to cancelling the recent increase in the prices of bread and flour.
Ceisteanna—Questions. Oral Answers. - Price of Imported Wheat.
21.
The answer is in the negative. One of the reasons for the Government decision referred to is to ensure that the millers will have no financial inducement not to use the highest possible quantity of native wheat in their flour milling grists. It is clear that it is in the national interest that this should be so.
Is the Minister aware that the device to which the Government have resorted of requiring the millers to pay an artificially high price for imported wheat is being used as a justification for increasing the price of flour and bread, and that means the section of the community for whom bread and flour are staple articles of diet are being compelled to pay a higher price for bread and flour in order to compensate for the bad harvest this year? Further, does he not think it would be more equitable if these compensatory provisions were borne by the Exchequer and not by the neediest and weakest section of the community?
Many possible solutions were considered, but the one arrived at was considered to be the most equitable, having regard to all interests.
Does the Minister think it is fair that this section of the community should have to pay?
They are not paying.
They are, in the form of a higher price for bread.
They are not paying a higher price.
The Minister for Health says that people do not live on bread; his remedy is to give them cake. Of course they live on bread.