asked the Minister for Industry and Commerce the measures he proposes to adopt to control the price of meat following the removal of levies by the EEC member states.
Ceisteanna—Questions. Oral Answers. - Food and Meat prices.
101.
As I indicated in reply to a similar question from the Deputy on 8th June, 1972, the retail price of meat is related to livestock prices which vary with supply and demand.
It would not be appropriate to introduce control on retail prices for meat unless there was evidence that these prices were excessive when related to prevailing prices for livestock. The Deputy is, no doubt, aware that there is keen competition in the retail meat trade.
102.
asked the Minister for Industry and Commerce whether food and meat prices, including beef, will continue to rise in the foreseeable future; and whether any hope of a stabilisation in such prices can be held out to housewives.
It is impossible to achieve price stability while costs continue to increase. Producers and traders, if they are to remain in business, have little option but to increase prices to compensate for increases in their costs. Meat prices are related to livestock prices which vary with supply and demand.
It would give me the utmost satisfaction to be able to assure the Deputy that food and meat prices will not continue to rise in the foreseeable future. While I am unable to give this assurance, I would expect that a new national wage agreement and the activities of the National Prices Commission would exert a measure of stabilisation over prices.
Does the Minister agree that the alarming increase in meat prices will have a very sensitive bearing on decisions about reaching a national wage agreement? If the Minister, looking at events over the next few weeks, cannot give an undertaking that there will be a stabilisation, this will mean a large inflationary element in the economy over the next few months.
I have to accept the fact that any increase in the price of food must affect everybody and no doubt will be taken into consideration in the wage negotiations.
How does the Minister reconcile the staggering increase in prices with the documentation emanating from his Department, and other Government Departments, intimating that the cost of living would increase by only 1p per lb. of produce over the transitional period? Was there not something fundamentally false about the dissemination of propaganda of that kind?
I do not think that the statement misquoted by the Deputy emanated from any Department prior to the referendum.