asked the Minister for Agriculture and Fisheries the price per gallon for creamery milk of 3.10 per cent fat content based on the price system recently announced.
Ceisteanna—Questions. Oral Answers. - Milk Prices.
74.
There is no fixed price or uniform scale of prices payable by creameries for milk. While milk supplied to creameries for manufacturing purposes must be paid for on the basis of its butterfat content, the price per unit of butterfat varies from creamery to creamery. It is determined by the creameries themselves and depends on a variety of factors such as the operational and marketing efficiency of the individual creameries, the degree to which their production has been diversified, and the non-milk activities carried on by them.
Would the Minister have the lowest and the highest figure paid?
I do not but, as the Deputy knows, they range pretty widely through 17½p down to quite a low level.
It is a very inequitable situation for producers of the same commodity.
Not in the case of co-operative creameries with different financial circumstances and different liabilities to meet.
I appreciate the background.
I think it is reasonable that the members of any particular co-operative society should meet their liabilities themselves provided the conditions of the sale of milk are uniform, as they are.
But there are creameries other than co-operative creameries.
There are—operating in the most uneconomic areas of the country. The Deputy will grant me that.
Does the Minister not admit that there are creameries that have been prevented from improving their standards because of the refusal of permission to set up certain plants?
This is special pleading and it will be recognised as such. It will also be recognised that the measures to relieve tensions of this kind have been pretty effective in the past 12 months. I know a couple of cases the Deputy may have in mind but in order to provide a rational regrouping of the creameries we cannot in certain circumstances permit the breakaway without some control of individual creameries.