asked the Minister for Agriculture if he will give details of the proposed voluntary grading schemes for such foodstuffs as tomatoes; and whether any system of price control is envisaged by such schemes.
Ceisteanna—Questions. Oral Answers. - Grading of Foodstuffs.
19.
The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development has adopted grading standards for fruit and vegetables which are now in operation in many of the member countries of that Organisation including all the member countries of the European Economic Community. The purpose of the voluntary grading scheme here is to encourage Irish tomato growers to grade their produce in accordance with the approved standards.
Copies of a memorandum giving full details of the scheme have been deposited in the Library.
No system of price control is envisaged by the scheme.
Could I ask the Minister, before he prohibited the importation of foreign tomatoes, did he make certain that there was a sufficient supply of home-grown tomatoes for the consumer?
We always try to do that.
Is the Minister aware that at present the price of home-grown tomatoes is so high that it is impossible for the average white-collar worker or working class mother to buy them for her family?
When an order such as this is being made, it is not so easy to measure matters so that things will run smoothly on the coming into operation of the order. Every effort is made to ensure that they will.
I appreciate the Minister's difficulty, but does he appreciate that, generally speaking, at the moment it is impossible for the type of family I have described to get any kind of fruit, and, considering that fruit is of such high nutritional value for children, it is important that fruit should be within the range of the family? That applies also to tomatoes.
Dealing here with tomatoes, we do our best to ensure that supplies will appear normally and that prices will be reasonable.