Susan O'Keeffe (Labour)

I second the amendment and thank the Minister for returning to the House, where it always is good to discuss food issues. I believe there is good architecture in place and that between the national waste prevention programme, the Waste Management (Food Waste) Regulations 2009, the landfill levy, the food labelling directive and the Stop Food Waste programme, the Government has put in place good architecture to cope with the enormous difficulties that I acknowledge arise. While Senator Quinn is right and it is good that Members are discussing these problems, I support the amendment because this architecture is in place. The Government will take the time and the care to build on that architecture, to take advice where it can and to change where it must, to ensure the problem of food waste does not grow out of proportion and become something about which no care is taken. However, I believe the Government is taking care of this problem and I look forward to the coming years to ascertain how this can be built upon and improved.

I will address my opening remarks to healthy eating and children in particular. The Food Dudes project is welcome and has worked. As a consequence, I have seen my children eat us out of house and home with those 4,600 apples mentioned by Senator Quinn. However, it would be worthwhile to ascertain whether the Food Dudes project can be extended to more schools more frequently. I have spoken to its organisers and this year, it is operating in 386 primary schools, which is great news. However, given the manner in which it rolls around different schools, some schools may not get it back again for a while or perhaps cannot afford to engage with it. Children must be reminded as they are only in a learning curve and if they learn something for six weeks they may forget it and must be reminded again. Although this may be the minor flaw in the programme, it is a great project that has proved to be successful in Wales where it originally was launched, elsewhere in the United Kingdom and in the United States.

The issue of school milk arises in the context of healthy eating. As a dairy and food scientist, I always support the drinking of milk. I would like to see a good deal more excitement being generated in respect of the consumption of milk. The advent of the Olympics in the UK this summer has prompted the launch of the "make mine milk" campaign. All of the UK's top athletes are currently appearing in advertisements in which they proclaim that skill, self-discipline and semi-skimmed milk will help them to win at the Olympics. This is a fun campaign, a part of which is a great interactive website which really reaches out to children and informs them that milk can be good for them. The athletes to whom I refer are pictured on the website sporting "milk 'taches". The latter are milk moustaches people often get when they drink milk. Individuals such as Gordon Ramsay, a chef, and Kelly Rowland, from "The X Factor", are also assisting in creating the kind of excitement to which I refer.

Children have far more available to them now than was the case when I was young. At that time, milk was both the only and the cheapest option and parents relied upon it for their children. This reflected the post-war view that if babies were given milk they would grow strong. We have moved so far away from that outlook that we have forgotten how things used to be. We could do a great deal to change people's perceptions. The Irish Dairy Board has done much to promote our food and dairy industry across the globe. That industry had a turnover of €1.9 billion last year. Perhaps we might engage the Irish Dairy Board to promote milk in a more exciting way in order that we might develop the healthy eating process further. Everyone is aware of the need to promote healthy eating, a matter which has been discussed in the House on numerous occasions. We must continue our efforts in respect of this issue.

Anaerobic digestion is not something which many of us might not wish to discuss very often. This is a technology which uses micro-organisms to break down biodegradable material. I would like our efforts in respect of delivering on the commitment the Government has given in respect of this matter to be driven by the Minister and his colleagues, the Minister of State at the Departments of Education and Skills and Jobs, Innovation and Enterprise, Deputy Sherlock, and the Minister for the Environment, Community and Local Government, Deputy Hogan. I am aware of two projects relating to anaerobic digestion which are currently ongoing at Sligo Institute of Technology. One of these is being carried out in partnership with South West College, Omagh, and involves trying to take small-scale waste from farms and converting it to energy to be used locally. This is because it is not possible to transport biohazardous waste to large sites and then try to convert it to energy. The small project to which I refer and which is still at the research stage involves dealing with waste and energy conversion at the same time. What is being attempted in this instance is good and I would like anaerobic digestion to become - as is the case with the fiscal compact - an issue which everyone would discuss.

Sligo Institute of Technology is also carrying out research with the Scottish Association for Marine Science in order to discover how to produce energy from marine algae. Again, this work involves anaerobic digestion. However, it is not so much driven by the need to deal with waste as it is by seeking to develop alternative ways to produce energy in the future.

A major problem exists in the context of food waste. Even with the architecture to which I refer being in place, I do not believe the Minister could or would ignore the fact that such a problem exists. In the US, some 110 kg of food per person per year is wasted. In sub-Saharan Africa, the figure is 5 kg per person. If one does not have any food, one does not have anything to waste. I agree that there are enormous difficulties in the context of waste food. Such food cannot just be dumped in landfill because it is dangerous and leads to the production of methane, etc. As is the case with the FareShare charity in the UK, I would like to see a similar charity here given support in respect of collecting food that is going to go to waste from supermarkets. Superquinn had a recent initiative in this regard. This is something which should be done on a nationwide basis in order to ensure that food which is safe to eat today can be eaten tomorrow and not placed in landfill.

What procedures are in place to deal with the fats, oil and grease, FOG, which are the by-products of food preparation within the catering industry? There is a major problem in respect of this matter in the US, with billions of gallons of untreated wastewater being allowed to flow into local waterways. I am not sure what is the position in Ireland in this regard.

Food labelling is a vexed question. Like many other people, I become confused when confronted with Irish smoked salmon and smoked Irish salmon. I welcome the fact that the EU has taken action in respect of this matter and that legislation is pending. In light of the difficulties to which so many other Senators referred, I ask the Minister to urge the relevant authorities to bring the process in this regard to a conclusion as quickly as possible. The concept of substantial transformation remains a problem. I refer, for example, to chickens which have been produced elsewhere but which, because they were substantially transformed and repackaged here, are labelled as Irish. We must move past that. I am aware that this matter is regulated by the EU and I welcome the fact that legislation is soon to come into place. I hope the EU legislation to which I refer will be transposed into Irish law in the near future and I look forward to further debates on this matter.