I wish to inquire about the price of the supplementary quota, because there is real confusion here. I understood—and I am asking the Minister either to clarify or correct my understanding—that we would get 150,000 tons at the full Community price, which is of the order of £100 a ton, give or take a little—it is in metric quantities—and that we would get another 52,000 tons, that is, another 35 per cent at 60 per cent of the full Community price, which is of the order of £60 a ton. On Tuesday last I asked the Minister for Transport and Power, Deputy B. Lenihan:
Do I understand the Minister to have clearly undertaken that sugar between 150,000 and 200,000 tons will be paid for at or above the current level?
The current price is £94 a ton. The Minister replied:
Yes, of course.
He talked elsewhere in his reply about Exchequer assistance, which I take to mean assistance from the Irish Exchequer to raise the price of the supplementary quota of 52,000 tons above current price levels. Is that the case? My understanding—and I may well be wrong—was that we could certainly produce an extra 52,000 tons, an extra 35 per cent, above our basic quota at the guaranteed price but that guaranteed price would not be anywhere near either the full Community price of £150 a ton or the present Irish price which is of the order of £94 a ton.