asked the Minister for Agriculture and Fisheries if there is any restriction on the export of sows after they have ceased to breed.
Ceisteanna—Questions. Oral Answers. - Export of Sows.
16.
The issue of licences for the export of live sows from here to the Continent is restricted in order to ensure adequate supplies of sows for the requirements of home sausage production and for the export trade in the form of carcase cuts to continental markets.
Is the Minister aware that the price payable for sows exported to the Continent is considerably in excess of what our home factories are paying? In restricting exports of sows once they have passed the breeding stage is the Minister not preventing farmers from getting full value for their produce?
This may have been affected by a recent reduction of levies to some European countries. It is probably not a long-lasting arrangement. While that reduction might reflect at present some higher price capable of being obtained elsewhere than is capable of being provided at home I think the prices being obtained at home are better in the long run and sustain the trade that has been taking up the sows, one month with the other round the year, for years past. If we were to dissipate the outlets by spasmodically allowing the raw material for sausage manufacture and other such trade to disappear then perhaps we would be left with the sows and no export outlet for them or, if there were, not at a remunerative price.
In Germany, factories pay 30/- per cwt. more for sows for the export market.
These discrepancies in prices may arise.