Dáil Éireann díospóireacht -
Tuesday, 11 Apr 1961

Vol. 188 No. 1

Committee on Finance. - Pigs and Bacon (Amendment) Bill, 1961—Financial Resolution.

Minister for Agriculture (Mr. Smith)

I move:

That it is expedient to make provision for the payment to the Pigs and Bacon Commission of a levy under section 34 of the Pigs and Bacon (Amendment) Act, 1939, at such rate as may be fixed by the Commission by order under that section made on the direction of the Minister given under any Act of the present session to amend and extend the Pigs and Bacon Acts, 1935 to 1956.

This Financial Resolution is required because under Section 18 of the Bill the Minister may direct the Commission to make Orders under Section 34 of the 1939 Act charging specified levies in respect of pig carcases used for bacon production by curers. These levies are collected for meeting the general costs of the Commission and the industry's part of the cost of supporting exports of bacon. Under Section 34 the Commission will normally fix the rate of levy payable but as curers' and producers' representatives will now form a majority of the Commission, it is necessary that the Minister should have a reserve power to direct the rate of levy payable at any time, so as to avoid an undue deficit falling on the Exchequer.

Mr. Dillon

Is this Financial Resolution brought in as a result of the Minister's decision to expand the number of course on the Pigs and Bacon Commission?

Mr. Smith

It would not have made any difference.

Mr. Dillon

The Minister has said that because there is now a majority of curer members on the Commission it is necessary to create a reserve power.

Mr. Smith

The Deputy did not catch fully what I said: "Under Section 34 the Commission will normally fix the rate of levy payable but as curers' and producers' representatives will now form a majority of the Commission..."

Mr. Dillon

In fact the Minister wishes to have an ultimate veto?

Mr. Smith

Yes.

Mr. Dillon

The effect of this Resolution is to provide the Minister for Agriculture with an ultimate veto on the determination of what the levy shall be?

Mr. Smith

If there was not that power those two interests could——

Mr. Dillon

I am not arguing powerfully against it; all I want to say is that I hate fraud. It does not seem to me to mean much to go through all the abracadabra of providing a Pigs and Bacon Commission consisting of curers and producers with the function of fixing the levy if immediately afterwards you bring in a Financial Resolution which says in effect that, having gone through all the abracadabra of fixing the levy, it does not matter a damn because if the Minister does not agree he simply wipes the whole thing out and fixes the levy himself. Why should he not fix it in the first place?

Mr. Smith

In the normal way I am sure the Commission as a responsible body would feel they were under obligation to fix the levy. However, the curers and the producers might be interested in making the levy as low as possible and if these two interests were to combine they might determine an unreasonably small levy or perhaps refuse to strike a levy at all. I am not suggesting that Ministerial intervention would be necessary very often, but it is not difficult to see that power of this nature is necessary in the event of an unreasonable approach by the Commission to their responsibilities.

Mr. Dillon

All I want to demur to is this: rightly or wrongly, I believe in the heel of the hunt it is much better to be straight and honest with people. The present Minister, his predecessor and myself had the responsibility of fixing these levies in the past and if they were popular we accepted the popularity; if they were unpopular, we faced the music. That was our job. In the last analysis, we were the people chosen by the public to function as Ministers for Agriculture and we had certain duties to discharge. We discharged them and faced the music here in the House.

It now appears to me that the new machinery set up under this Bill is largely illusive. So long as the Commission does what the Minister for Agriculture wants it to do in connection with the levy, then it is the Commission who does it. If the Commission does not do what the Minister wants it to do, then the Minister has absolute power of veto and, not only of veto, but of substituting his own decision for the decision of the Commission. That being the case, a large part of the supposed change here is illusive, because you may say that the Pigs and Bacon Commission is here-after to be controlled by producers and processors but, in fact, in regard to this very fundamental matter it is controlled by neither; it is ultimately controlled by the Minister for Agriculture.

I am not prepared to say that that is a responsibility which any Minister for Agriculture could shuffle off. What I am concerned with is to make it clear that this Financial Resolution substantially negatives the proposition that the Pigs and Bacon Commission is now being operated by producers and processors because in respect of this very fundamental matter, the amount of the levy from time to time, they are controlling it only in so far as they are in agreement with the Minister for Agriculture for the time being. His decision is the ultimate one. Probably, that is inevitable, but it ought to be faced and we should not indulge in pretence when we are called upon to face it.

Mr. Smith

There is no question of my attempting any pretence in this matter at all. In a section to which we will come, I hope, it is provided that the levy must be fixed with the Minister's consent. The Minister's consent is necessary in all cases, apart from this provision. I imagine that the relationship between the Commission and the Minister will be such that things will be done on a different basis but in the event of that odd sort of situation arising there is no way that I can see out of doing what I am proposing here.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolution reported and agreed to.