Dáil Éireann díospóireacht -
Friday, 18 Jul 1975

Vol. 283 No. 12

Vote 38: Agriculture.

Minister for Agriculture and Fisheries (Mr. Clinton)

I move:

That a supplementary sum not exceeding £9,000,000 be granted to defary the charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on 31st December, 1975, for the salaries and expenses of the Office of the Minister for Agriculture and Fisheries, including certain services administered by that Office, and for payment of certain subsidies and sundry grants-in-aid.

The main estimate for agriculture for 1975 amounting to £76,927,000 was passed on 19th June. This supplementary estimate provides for the additional expenditure which is expected to be incurred by my Department this year in respect of the subsidies on butter and liquid milk which were proposed by the Minister for Finance in his financial statement presented to the House on 26th June.

The additional money for certain capital and non-capital services of my Department which was also provided in the recent financial statement, as well as certain sums provided for agriculture in the January budget, will be covered by a further supplementary estimate which will be introduced in the ordinary way before the end of the financial year. Of the supplementary provision of £9 million, £2.8 million is in respect of the additional cost to the Exchequer of the consumer subsidy on butter and £6.2 million in respect of the liquid milk subsidy.

As announced by the Minister for Finance the Government have decided to increase the level of consumer subsidy being paid in respect of butter consumed on the home market so as to bring about a price reduction of 10p per lb. at retail level. This has, in fact, already been done. Prior to 1st July, the consumer subsidy on butter was £54.58 per ton ex creamery, the cost being divided equally between the National Exchequer and the EEC's Agricultural Fund (FEOGA).

As from July 1st the level of subsidy was increased to £263 per ton ex creamery. This involved an additional FEOGA contribution of £23.20 per ton and an additional Exchequer element of £185.22 per ton. The new subsidy is equivalent to 9.30p of the creamery price per lb. and this reflects a subsidy of 10p per lb. at retail level —the retailers' gross percentage margin remaining undisturbed. The subsidy will, as heretofore, be paid direct to creameries, monthly in arrears in respect of sales destined for home market consumption.

The subsidy on liquid milk will be payable at the rate of 2p a pint on whole milk, whether pasteurised or unpasteurised, which is sold in bottles or other containers for liquid consumption in the State and in respect of which the price charged to the consumer is reduced by 2p a pint below the price now being charged for such milk. My Department is at present making arrangements for administering a liquid-milk subsidy scheme on this basis.

As we had not an existing subsidy system for liquid-milk, the introduction of the new subsidy for that product has of necessity to take some time. Our national statistics of milk production and use do not include fully authenticated figures of liquid milk consumption. Such figures as we have suggest that about 90 million gallons are bought by consumers from the liquid milk trade. That trade is carried on mainly by licensed pasteurisers, who distribute about 76 million gallons yearly. The remaining 14 million gallons approximately are distributed by bottlers of unpasteurised milk and by sellers of loose milk in some areas.

The operation of the new subsidy will involve:

(1) the making by the Minister for Industry and Commerce of an Order reducing to 6p a pint (instead of the current price of 8p a pint) the maximum retail price of bottled milk, and

(2) the setting up of arrangements to inject a corresponding subsidy of 2p a pint at the first stage of the milk distribution chain, i.e. at the stage of preparation of liquid milk with a view to its distribution for sale to consumers, and to ensure that the benefit of the subsidy is passed on to all subsequent stages, including that of purchase by consumers.

In order to be eligible for subsidy it will be necessary for all milk pasteurisers and other bottlers to keep adequate records of their acquisitions and disposals of milk for liquid consumption, to produce those records for inspection by officers of my Department and to furnish periodical returns of transactions in liquid milk. My Department will also have to be satisfied that the sale prices for all milk concerned have been reduced by 2p a pint.

The lines on which the subsidy might be operated have been discussed in general terms with representatives of the Milk Pasteurisers' Association, and details of the scheme are now being finalised. It is hoped that it will be possible to bring the subsidy into operation during the coming weeks.

The subsidy scheme will apply to licensed pasteurisers (all of whom can be assumed to be already keeping adequate records of their transactions), and to bottlers of unpasteurised milk who can show that they also have satisfactory records. My Department has recently published advertisements asking these latter bottlers to contact the Department so that officers of the Department can call on them as soon as possible to advise on any necessary improvements in their records.

The increased consumer subsidy on butter and the new consumer subsidy on liquid milk will make a significant contribution to reducing the cost of living. they constitute a very positive indication of the Government's commitment to taking effective measures to reduce the rate of inflation and I am confident that the House will readily agree to vote the necessary funds.

Mr. J. Gibbons

Might I enquire how long we are permitted to speak on this Supplementary Estimate?

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

The whole debate is confined to an hour and a half.

Mr. J. Gibbons

It occurred to me, when the Minister was speaking, that the fact that he, the Leas-Cheann Comhairle and me, were alone in this House, with the exception of the Press and other people who are required in the exercise of their employment to be here, reflects in an odd way the total unreality of the approach of this Government to what must be the greatest problem the Irish have at present. There is absolute the resolve of the National Coalition Government to paper over the cracks and physically gag the expression of any opposition to the disastrous headlong course that Irish agriculture, as well as every other aspect of the Irish economy, is on at present.

The Minister's brief had an odd resemblance to somebody reading some of the more obscure passages from the Apocalypse in some fundamentalist church it was so unreal. The last paragraph of that speech could be read again to the sound of muted trumphets:

They constitute a very positive indication of the Government's commitment to taking effective measures to reduce the rate of inflation and I am confident that the House will readily agree to vote the necessary funds.

This is a further papering over of the cracks that have been cracking under previous coats of paper for a considerable time.

As far as I remember this is the first opportunity this House has had, since the Government took office, to discuss agriculture.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

The Deputy appreciates that the debate is confined to the items for which the money is sought in the Supplementary Estimate.

Mr. J. Gibbons

I was afraid that if I attempted to widen the scope of the discussion it might not be in conformity with the Government's resolve to prevent any mention of this serious situation.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

This is the standing procedure in regard to Supplementary Estimates; it is different on a token Estimate.

Mr. J. Gibbons

My recollection fails me because in cases where token Estimates or Estimates other than the main Estimate are taken they have been an occasion for a general debate on the subject of agriculture. I understand this is no longer permitted by this regime. The "thought police" of the present regime do not like it.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

Standing Order No. 124 is the new Standing Order on this matter. It states:

In the discussion of a Supplementary Estimate the debate shall be confined to the Items constituting the same, and no discussion may be raised on the original Estimate, save in so far as it may be necessary to explain or illustrate the particular Items under discussion.

Mr. J. Gibbons

I accept the ruling of the Chair but it neatly confirms what I have been saying, that the Government now, or at any other time, are resolved to gag every Member and ensure there is no political criticism of their management of the agricultural situation since they took office. Therefore, if the Chair insists we must confine ourselves to the terms of the Estimate.

The Minister said that the purpose of this Supplementary Estimate was to dull the effects of the raging, racing inflation that has been, according to the Taoiseach, brought about by the direct activities of the Government. I do not accept that this is the real purpose of the subsidy on butter and liquid milk. The real purpose of that is to keep the voters happy. I expect that the money for this will be borrowed abroad and left for subsequent Fianna Fáil Governments to pay when they rescue the country from the hands of the Government. If the necessity for the introduction of this Supplementary Estimate has been induced by the wild inflation we are experiencing will it not be legitimate to refer also to the other effects of this inflation?

The Minister in his short homily made reference to the scant knowledge available in the Department regarding the quantities of supply or the number of suppliers in the liquid milk supply business. All of these suppliers produce the milk we are subsidising. When the Minister is replying to this— it would be inaccurate to call it a debate—permission that we have been accorded to speak for a very limited time within very limited confines, and it is not certain that he will be replying, perhaps he would tell us if he or his Department have made any calculations into the cost of producing a gallon of milk for the liquid supply market, having regard to the fact that the prices of fertilisers have trebled since the advent of the Coalition as have all the other costs of production. There have been huge increases in the cost of the provision of farm buildings, in the price of agricultural diesel fuel and in the price of all types of machines. Apart from these considerations there has been the entry of a new element into the liquid milk business, an element that was devised by the Coalition. I refer to the imposition of several new taxes which were not in existence before the Coalition came into office. These taxes will upset the whole pattern of Irish agriculture, will destroy the costing of farm succession and will saddle the inheritors of farms with burdens of debt that they will never be able to shed.

If it is legitimate for the Minister to subsidise the products of these farms, it is legitimate also to inquire into the effects of inflation on the producers of these products. The smaller producers are unlikely to survive a great deal more of the manner of assistance that is being conferred on them by the Government. A great many of them are very heavily indebted. Only yesterday a Bill making available money to the ACC was jack-booted through the House so as to provide a higher ceiling for borrowing by farmers whereas in 1973 farmers were borrowing for the purposes of expansion, farm development and the building of new houses. Any borrowing now is purely for survival. This is rather in the same manner as the Government are borrowing wildly from any source they can tap. I understand that the Minister for Finance has departed hurriedly for the Lebanon or some obscure place in the Middle-East where he may dig up some previously unheard of sheiks who may have a little spare lolly to lend to the creaking structure of the Government.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

The Deputy is moving away from the Estimate.

Mr. J. Gibbons

The Leas-Cheann Comhairle and I have rerely disagreed, but I ask you to look at the problem from my point of view.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

I am sure that the Deputy will appreciate the Chair's position in this regard and will realise that I must keep within Standing Orders.

Mr. J. Gibbons

I must remind you that yesterday there was a Committee Stage of a Finance Bill—the Agricultural Credit Bill—during which everybody made Second Reading speeches. It was like the Bells of St. Mary's from the other side: everything in the garden was lovely. However, I shall not disagree with you. The Minister is subsidising butter. He had to take this action because there was growing very rapidly a menacing traffic in the reimportation from the Six Counties of southern butter. This development was upsetting the domestic butter market to such an extent that some form of subsidy had to be introduced to correct it such as that which has been in operation on the other side of the Border for a considerable time.

I do not know whether butter production will show an increase this year compared with last year. I suspect that this will not be so. The Minister has been telling us that milk deliveries to creameries are up by 10 per cent this year compared with last year. My opinion is that by the end of the milk season the overall effect will be a drop in milk production. What is almost certain is that the profitability of the milk manufacturing industry will have dropped to a degree that the manufacturing co-operative combines such as Mitchelstown, Charleville, Avonmore and so on will have some difficulty in servicing their capital debts and there may be a possibility of their being constrained to impose a levy on the milk price paid to their suppliers, especially in view of the impending introduction of something that is known to the European Commission as financial co-responsibility. This is something on which we have not heard the Minister express an opinion yet any more than we have heard him express any new thinking on the stocktaking of the CAP that is being undertaken at present and which incorporates this notion of financial co-responsibility. It would be well to have this idea defined because it means reducing the price to the producer. There is no other area of economic activity where this is acceptable or permissible.

I am very much afraid that it may come into operation but the only saving factor that may prevent it is the unusually dry weather which would have led to some drop in milk production. A Cheann Comhairle, I have been told by the Leas-Cheann Comhairle that if anybody from this side of the House mentions anything about the destruction of the beef cattle herds, the depletion of the pig herds or the very rapid destruction of the sheep flock, we may be out of order.

An Ceann Comhairle

It is a ruling with which I concur. It is not provided for in the Supplementary Estimate, but a fleeting reference may be made to it.

Mr. J. Gibbons

I beg your pardon.

An Ceann Comhairle

I am merely concurring with the decision of the Chair in that regard, that only the items referred to should be discussed.

Mr. J. Gibbons

I did not expect you to do anything else. I shall have to go back to the Apocalypse to see if I can get anything else to talk about. I should like the Minister to enlighten us as to what plans he and his Department have for the control of brucellosis and tuberculosis in the herds which will be enjoying the subsidy the Minister is introducing now. It is necessary for us to remind ourselves that this Supplementary Estimate, introduced as it well may be under the guise of some assistance to the struggling farm industry, is nothing of the kind. It is a subsidy to the consumers and is of no value whatever that I can see to the producers.

The Minister alludes to the assistance that this will give in controlling inflation in the consumer context, but I would have thought the Minister would contemplate some measures to assist the producers themselves in resisting the effects of the same inflation. It is unlikely that the herd owners, the creamery milk suppliers and the liquid milk suppliers, will be able from their own resources to do anything at all about the very serious situation that exists in the matter of disease eradication at present. It is so drastic that the fact that we are not to allude to it in this House is nothing short of criminal. It is an absolute standing of democracy on its head. If we have not completed the eradication of brucellosis and tuberculosis by 1978 we will not be able to export any of these meat or dairy products.

I have heard it said that the Department of Agriculture and Fisheries have looked for a derogation or for an extension of time, and that after great cogitation and wrangling and reasoning the Government were told they might have six months. That confronts the Minister with a really mammoth problem and as yet I have not perceived any radical new approach to this enormous question of disease eradication. The cure for this will be necessarily rough. There will have to be very strict and stern measures adopted, and at once. If they are not, we would still have a considerable cattle herd left in spite of the activities of the National Coalition Government and we shall have nowhere to go with them.

This very serious fact and all the other facts that raise such enormous questions for Irish farmers who are producers of milk, especially in the future, have been deliberately blacked out and prevented from getting access to public knowledge by the deliberate policy of this Government of preventing their being discussed either here or anywhere else. Instead of free and open discussion on this vital national matter, we have the best public relations operation that I would say the country ever saw. It would make George Orwell's Nineteen-Eighty-Four look really pathetic. We are persuaded that at the head of this thriving and burgeoning Irish agriculture there is a fighting Minister leading it on to greater heights every day of the week. It puts me in mind of a fairly famous character who used to occur in little songs and jingles that we heard when we were young. We are living in a Freudian age; there are two main gurus, Karl Marx and Sigmund Freud, and people are always talking about syndromes. We have a new syndrome now, the Brian O'Lynn syndrome: “The bridge fell down and we all fell in, but there's ground at the bottom, says Brian O'Lynn”.

The Government at present are the very same. Irish agriculture is in very serious disarray; so is the economy generally. They know about the bonanzas: "We will soon be around the corner". It is time for the more responsible people in the Press and elsewhere to ask themselves are they really serving a worth-while cause by aiding and abetting this mean deception, because it is nothing else. It is a deception that costs the taxpayer a great deal of money, apart from the misrepresentation of the facts, somewhat like the corralling and the stripping of the producers of small cattle last year.

It is time we had an end to this nonsense, and it is over time that this House got an opportunity really to examine Irish agriculture. I know I am debarred by some article in the Book of Rules from talking about this, but I feel that the fact that I am a farmer myself and represent farmers gives me some right that may very well soon override that Book of Rules on your desk, a Cheann Comhairle. I want to tell the Minister that the farmers have had enough of this managed news. What we really want now is for the Minister and his colleagues to acknowledge that they are not able to govern this country, that they have made the most unholy mess of things, and depart.

Mr. Hegarty

I wish to compliment the Government and the Minister for bringing in this Estimate which I believe will go a long way towards improving the housewife's situation, a situation in which prices are rising rapidly every day. It will enable her to ensure that sufficient quantities of both butter and milk will be available to her at a reasonable price. The Government should be complimented on their effort to control inflation and particularly on this brilliant idea. Holding the cost of living gives the economy a chance to get back on its feet and it allows for the creation of jobs. This is but a beginning. The help given by the Minister is much appreciated.

The most significant factor is that the dairy industry, particularly that section dealing with butter and milk, have an opportunity of pushing their products on the home market and I hope they will grasp it. Not enough advertising is being done. At 6p a pint milk represents the best food value for money at the moment. It is a most wholesome product but yet it is difficult at times to get a glass of milk in an hotel or restaurant.

Butter has been the victim of a mean campaign by some medical people who refer to its potential hazards. To me that is a lot of nonsense. If a person took all this advice too far he would end up by starving to death. The co-operative societies and the companies involved in the sale and production of milk and butter should use this injection of capital to further their products. Despite the severe drought experienced in the last few months milk yields will be up.

The Minister should be complimented on what he has done. He has been subjected to a lot of unfair criticism. Those involved in agriculture have shown their confidence in the Government and in the Minister; there is now a greater number of dairy cows and bigger and more efficient milking parlours are being erected. Apart from its effect at consumer level, the effect of the subsidy on industry will be significant. Because of our climate and other factors we are able to produce milk and butter more competitively than any other nation in Europe.

The subsidy will apply also to unpasteurised milk and this is to be welcomed. Perhaps in the long term we should not encourage the use of unpasteurised milk but the pasteurisation process is a fairly expensive operation and many people are producing excellent milk without using that process. The question of unpasteurised milk should be studied more carefully before the critics make their statements. All of us survived on ordinary clean milk and it did not do us any harm. I cannot understand all the excitement about pasteurisation and I am glad that the people who are selling a good product will benefit from the scheme. In fact, because they do not pasteurise the milk it makes them even more careful in ensuring that the product is good.

Butter is an important item in our diet but it was getting very expensive. As Deputy Gibbons pointed out, there is cross-Border trafficking which must be deplored. If we want butter for nothing, we cannot expect to employ people in our creameries and in the processing industry. The subsidy will help to counteract the cross-Border trafficking in butter.

I should like to see the measure the Minister has put forward being continued and extended. For instance, it would be worth while to include cheese in the subsidy. At the moment there is a swing towards this product and there is a substantial demand for Irish cheese. The Irish dairy industry are using sophisticated processes in the manufacture of cheese. It is an excellent food for young and old but it is not being plugged enough. Any help given to the cheese industry should be confined to the Irish product only. At one time the foreign cheese market controlled the home market but now it is being replaced by the Irish product.

I do not share the pessimism of Deputy Gibbons regarding the dairy industry. It is flourishing and it will continue to flourish. In the last few years it has grown and prospered. It suits our needs and our climate. We have been categorised by the EEC as a nation that should produce dairy products and this is stressed by the emphasis put on dairying by the Department of Agriculture and Fisheries. It may be over-emphasised to the exclusion of other products, such as horticultural products in which I am interested.

Dairying is going well. This injection of £9 million is a good thing. It should have the effect of helping the housewife to keep adequate supplies of butter in the home to the exclusion of imported margarine which is so popular even with some medical people. Now that the difference in price is marginal the housewife will use butter. Children are not confused as to which tastes better. Butter certainly is the better and more wholesome product and therefore I am glad that we will be in a position to offer that product at a realistic price.

The same applies to milk. At 6p a pint milk is a very cheap food and it is a complete food, a fact which is not advertised sufficiently. I hope that co-operative societies and dairies will engage in a selling campaign. The Government can give the lead but the impetus can be lost if action is not taken down along the line. The dairying industry should avail of this injection of £9 million to promote sales of butter and milk on the home market, apart from foreign markets. There is an enormous home market and not nearly enough effort is put into selling. This type of injection should be used to promote sales of dairy products including cheese, yogurt and all the other items. This is one way of ensuring that there will be no mountains of products, that there will be balanced production and that the decks would be cleared at all times. There should be attractive presentation. A great deal is being done to promote sales but the effort is not sufficiently intensive. If there were as much publicity for milk and dairy products as there is for drink the nation would be a healtier one. Advertisements showing people drinking pints of milk would do a great deal of good.

I would like to compliment the Minister generally on his performance as Minister in a fairly tough world situation. It is becoming increasingly difficult to sell our products abroad. Having the energy that he has and given the co-operation that he must get from meat factories, dairies, co-operatives and farmers generally I have no doubt that the Minister will continue to do the good job that he is doing in ensuring that the Irish product gets the best price abroad. That is one of his main functions as Minister in an EEC situation.

Mr. Browne

My main purpose in speaking on the Estimate is to ask a question and to try to get information from the Minister in regard to the liquid milk subsidy and there are a few other matters that I want to deal with. The last speaker referred to an injection of £9 million into the dairying industry. I do not think anyone would accept that this is an injection of £9 million into the dairying industry. This subsidy is for the purpose of restoring the price of butter and liquid milk to the consumer. Indirectly it will help the dairying industry and from that point of view possibly it might be regarded as an injection. From the Minister's point of view it is very expensive.

I do not know if I could elaborate on the question of providing support for cheese manufacturing. The last speaker referred to it and although it has not been referred to in the Minister's statement, it may come under the heading of liquid milk. In County Wexford there is a substantial cheese manufacturing industry. Anything that would popularise the use of cheese would be very welcome. We would all like to see more cheese being used on the home market. This would help the dairying industry to a very great extent. That is beside the point that I rose to make but it is an important point and one which I hope the Minister will keep in mind.

Everybody must welcome the subsidy of £9 million towards sales of butter and liquid milk. All that we on this side of the House can say is that it is a pity it was not introduced earlier, possibly 12 months ago or at the time of the budget. At that stage certainly it was recommended that subsidies of this nature should be introduced. Had that been done it would have helped to remove some of the difficulties then facing the Government and might have helped to avoid some of the major problems in the industrial sphere now facing the country.

The price of butter has been reduced but there is some question as to whether the price of liquid milk will come down by 2p a pint or not. There seems to be a doubt about it, that applications for price increases will result in an increase in the price and offset as far as the consumer is concerned the reduction of 2p a pint that has been mentioned.

It would be a good thing if we could bring the price of our butter into line with the price in the Six Counties and in Britain. That might cost a lot of money. It is regrettable that thousands of people should cross the Border every week for the purpose of importing butter at 10p or 12p a lb less than even the subsidised price of butter in the Twenty-six Counties. Much of that butter is manufactured here, exported to the Six Counties and imported into the Twenty-six Counties. I do not blame the housewives for that when it can be done legally. They are buying excellent butter at a price which is 8p or 10p per lb less than the price charged on the Irish market. It would be very difficult to blame the Irish housewife for getting into a car or a bus and heading up to Jonesboro or elsewhere to do her shopping.

I would like to deal with the small suppliers of liquid milk. In Wexford there are may be 15 or 16 suppliers of what might be regarded as small quantities of loose liquid milk. For those suppliers this is their livelihood. They go round the local town or village daily to deliver, in cans or otherwise, possibly 30 to 50 gallons of milk. There are two such suppliers around Enniscorthy, five or six in Gorey and a few more in the outskirts of Wexford town. Under the full control of the CMO they supply this milk. This matter was raised recently at Wexford County Council and it was agreed that if the CMO—and he accepted this—annually tested the cows concerned and ensured that the dairies were up to standard, that there was no objection to their supplying loose milk to these towns.

How will these suppliers be affected by the subsidy? Have the Department made arrangements to ensure that they will benefit by it? If they have to sell loose milk at 2p per pint more than the large dairies who sell bottled milk, they will go out of business, because naturally the customer will not stand for it. I am sure the Minister will agree that these small suppliers could not stay in business unless they benefit from the subsidy. When the Minister replies perhaps he will tell us how these people will fare? Will they benefit from the subsidy because, if not, they will be out of business.

Mr. C. Murphy

I promise to be very brief as quite a few pertinent points have been raised to which the Minister will want to reply.

I welcome these subsidies. This supplementary estimate is part of the Government's package to try to reduce the cost of living. When speaking on the official budget in 1974 I called on the Minister to consider the idea of bringing in food subsidies because I considered they were essential. I am glad to see they have at last arrived.

On 15th April, 1975, I asked the Taoiseach the percentage increase in the price of milk and butter in the period February, 1974, to February, 1975. His reply was that the percentage increase between mid-February, 1974 and mid-February, 1975, in the average retail prices was butter, 47.3 per cent and milk 36.4 per cent. These figures highlighted the burden on the average housewife. I am pleased that three months later the Government have introduced subsidisation. My only regret is that it has come so late. This is not an injection of capital into the industry. It is simply an effort to lower the price paid by the housewife. Whether it will be successful remains to be seen. I intend to ask questions to find out what the consumer price increase has been in relevant periods following this subsidy.

Nine million pounds is a great deal of money which, apparently, we will not have to pay. It is part of the deficit. It is part of the continued policy of this Government to run up bills. If we are lucky enough to borrow, we will have to repay the interest. This Government know they will only be in office for a short time and it will fall on Fianna Fáil to meet these payments. Fianna Fáil, as always, will rise to the occasion.

We have been asking for food subsidies for a long time. Now that they have arrived they are welcome. Milk is essential because it provides the farmer with his useful monthly cheque. But milk alone is not sufficient. We want quality milk. To have quality milk we must have quality cows. To have quality cows we must have quality grass. To have quality grass we must have fertilisation. We need fertilisation from NET which was set up to supply the market. It is dreadful to see stockpiles of fertilisers in Arklow when it is needed for good milk. The farmer cannot use the fertiliser because it is so costly. Why did the Government not come in with a subsidy along these lines?

I hope that the dumping commission will find a case against the Portuguese. I believe they were meeting this morning so perhaps the Minister will have good news for us, that this ship with approximately 3,500 tons of Portuguese CAN will not be unloaded.

An Ceann Comhairle

I hesitate to interrupt the Deputy but he will appreciate that he is now ranging very wide of this Supplementary Estimate. It is a very restricted Estimate confined to subsidies on butter and liquid milk and related matters. The Deputy may not avail of the opportunity to raise this extraneous matter.

Mr. C. Murphy

Is the Ceann Comhairle telling me, seeing that I have traced where quality milk comes from, back to quality cows——

An Ceann Comhairle

The Deputy knows quite well what I am referring to.

Mr. C. Murphy

——that I cannot discuss the sad plight of the workers in NET who are facing loss of jobs? Are you telling me that I cannot raise this issue because it is outside the Estimate?

An Ceann Comhairle

This Estimate relates to subsidies on butter and liquid milk.

Mr. C. Murphy

I am delighted to see subsidisation of butter and milk. Three months ago we saw very large figures for the 12-months period of 47.3 per cent increase in the average retail price of butter and 36.4 per cent increase in the average retail price of milk. I certainly hope that the subsidies will be successful. I shall conclude to facilitate the Minister in replying.

Minister for Agriculture and Fisheries (Mr. Clinton)

I tried in my opening statement to give the House clearly the reasons why those substantial subsidies are being brought in. I believe I gave that in considerable detail. I believe it is fair for me to say, listening to the speakers on the Opposition benches, that they spent the major portion of the time explaining to the Chair the things they were not allowed to discuss on this occasion.

Mr. C. Murphy

They are on the record. Did the Minister never try that from this side of the House?

Mr. Browne

The Minister was good at it when he was over here.

Mr. C. Murphy

The Minister will have an opportunity again.

Mr. Clinton

They did this job extremely well. Deputy Gibbons was at some pains to convey the impression that I was trying by any and every means to avoid discussion of agricultural matters in the House. Nothing could be further from the truth. We discuss agriculture in the House on exactly the same occasions as our predecessors in Government did, at the time of the main Estimate, Supplementary Estimates, if anybody brings in a motion and if anybody asks questions. I am always most agreeable and anxious to discuss agriculture because I feel we have done extremely well in the circumstances through which we have been passing as far as agriculture is concerned.

Deputy Gibbons went a little further and said that the Government had now a managed Press in relation to agriculture. I believe he is very upset and annoyed that we have open Government, that we meet the Press people whenever they want to talk to us and that we give them the fullest possible explanations of everything we are doing and everything we propose to do. Consequently we avoid wide speculation. The secrecy with which Government was carried on in the past was always resented by the Press and consequently got fairly adverse Press comment. Deputy Gibbons referred to my statement as something resembling an obscure passage from the Apocalypse, even though I explained it in the greatest detail.

Mr. Browne

I believe he is the only one in the country who reads it.

Mr. Clinton

Those who said that this was not a producer subsidy were quite right because that is not the primary aim. The primary aim is to bring down the CPI so that we will get a response whereby workers will forego an equal amount. In this way we will start to wind down the inflation we are all so concerned about. This is one of the very effective methods we are using to bring down the CPI. The two items concerned in this Supplementary Estimate are calculated to bring down the CPI by 1.26 per cent. That is a fairly effective reduction.

It is also right to say that at the same time it is a considerable help to producers, because farmers, like everybody else, eat butter. They always used butter liberally when they made it and they still continue to use a lot of it, even though they do not make it but buy it instead. This will mean a considerable saving to farmers in common with all other consumers. In addition, farmers will get the benefit of all the other subsidies. We are not asking them for any particular response in this regard. They have had to respond in a pretty tough way during the past year. None of us should lose sight of this.

I seem to have been held responsible by Deputy Gibbons for the increase in the cost of fertilisers. Of course he knows that I could not possibly do anything about this. I have to point out again that we are the only country in the EEC that provides any subsidisation whatever for fertilisers. We heard a good deal of talk about the price of butter across the Border. and the traffic across the Border. Even if we had the same sort of money to provide consumer subsidies here as they have in the UK, we would not be allowed to do it. We have probably gone slightly farther than we should in this and in our anxiety and concern to bring down the cost-of-living index.

Britain are allowed to do it because it was something they were doing before they joined the EEC. As we all know, the Fianna Fáil Government did not provide such subsidies and consequently debarred us from doing it by not having them there before we joined the EEC. I would like the Deputies opposite to know that they are totally responsible for us not being able to introduce new subsidies because they had not them introduced before we joined the EEC. I was glad that the Deputies opposite at least welcomed the subsidy on butter and milk and said not only would they be a good thing for the consumers but would also be a good thing for the producers because it would help the home market to the extent that was necessary.

I would like to explain again that butter is no problem here. We have no difficulty in selling butter. Even if some of our Irish consumers get a cheaper product from across the Border I do not think we should be howling and complaining about it because this is legal traffic. They are getting the advantage of the lower prices. We are well able to sell our butter. It is not a problem.

Mr. Browne

We are not complaining. I said it is quite legal.

Mr. C. Murphy

We are being factual.

Mr. Clinton

The Opposition cannot have it both ways.

Mr. C. Murphy

Butter on both sides of the bread.

Mr. Clinton

Why are they drawing attention to this if it is not to complain, moan and groan as they are perpetually doing?

Mr. Browne

We hope the Minister will get another £10 million somewhere.

Mr. Clinton

We have been able to find many millions although it has not been easy.

A question was raised about loose milk. We are anxious as far as possible to subsidise milk in the manner indicated but it would be quite impossible in view of the quantity involved in the case raised by Deputy Browne. The information at my disposal indicates that the amount now being sold loose is insignificant. I should like to see it included if there were a way in which that could be done but I believe there is no way of doing it. Deputy Browne seemed to justify this on the grounds that in Wexford, his own constitutuency, the sale of milk loose had the blessing of the health authorities and the doctors.

Mr. Browne

What I am telling the Minister is that unless he can find some way of subsidising this milk he will put 14 or 15 progressive small farmers out of business, a business that has been carried on for generations over the last 150 years.

Mr. Clinton

I do not accept the prospect of putting these people out of business, I do not think anybody will dive into that small business because it would be totally uneconomic for people from outside to seek to secure this business. We will be anxious to ensure that, where possible, they get this subsidy.

Deputy Browne spoke about quality and the acceptance of quality. I agree the quality is perfectly all right. It is a question of quantity, deciding on quantity and having a reliable record. We are pretty good at sidestepping regulations and getting subsidies to which we are not entitled.

Mr. Browne

The numbers are small and it should be possible for the Minister's Department to devise some scheme, either an agreed amount at the end of the year or something of that kind. If you know the number of cows a man has you know the quantity of milk he can put on the market. I am sorry to interrupt the Minister, but this is a very important matter for these people.

Mr. Clinton

It is a matter of concern for me too. I agree with the Deputy, if we can find a way to include them, that is what we want to do. If the Deputy can suggest any workable arrangement I shall certainly be glad to listen to him.

Deputy Gibbons spoke about milk production and said that, because of the cost imposed by the present Government, milk production would be down by the end of the year and he implied I had been giving more or less false impressions. All I can say is that I got the returns this morning for the week ended 21st June and they showed that milk production was up by 10 per cent for the first six months. I cannot tell him what the future holds and he cannot tell me what it holds: milk production may be up or down. He quoted Brian O'Lynn and he should have gone a little further and quoted a little more because, under Fianna Fáil, Brian O'Lynn had a house, to be sure, with the sky for a roof and the ground for a floor but, under the Coalition Government, there is no such criticism because we are building houses at a rate at which they were never built before.

Mr. Browne

Where are they?

An Ceann Comhairle

Order.

Mr. Clinton

Deputy Gibbons went on to talk about the great importance of milk barns and the eradication of disease if we are to have a milk supply at the right price. I want him to know —I think he knows it already—that there is no argument between us in regard to this matter. My only disappointment is that during the last 20 years, as far as tuberculosis is concerned, and the last ten years, as far as brucellosis is concerned, there was not very much greater progress and the results were not much better because it does not make it any easier for me now in the limited times available to me.

Mr. Browne

We spent a tremendous amount on it.

Mr. Clinton

I agree and we have not got the best possible value for it. However, I share Deputy Gibbons's concern and I have spent a considerable amount of time recently trying to find ways and means of improving the measures for disease eradication.

As I said in my opening statement, the purpose of this Supplementary Estimate is simply and solely to bring down the CPI and get an adequate and suitable response from the people so that we can start to wind down the inflation which is causing so much trouble and which is affecting farming and farmers more than any other section. For that reason it should be welcomed by all. I am grateful for the contributions made.

Mr. Browne

Will the Minister have a look at the problem I raised? It is a very serious problem. I do not know anything about other counties, or whether or not it exists in them, but in Wexford it is certainly a very serious matter.

Mr. Clinton

If the Deputy has anything concrete to suggest I shall be glad to have it.

Mr. Browne

It should be possible to work out something.

Vote put and agreed to.