Kate O'Connell (Dublin Bay South, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Has the Department governance over the pathway of the money? Mr. Gleeson mentioned the Food Dudes programme. I am concerned about the impact on primary school children of the narrative to the effect that veganism and plant-based diets are better. Given the Department's role and its funding of Bord Bia, has it any cross-departmental collaborations with the Department of Health, or with the Food Safety Authority of Ireland, FSAI, in respect of the food pyramid? I refer to getting the message out about efficiency, which we just mentioned, and the food miles impact of supermarket products.

I had better not mention the name, but one of the large supermarkets has a vegan section. I get concerned when I see that there is no Irish section. We are good at selling our products abroad, but I am concerned that we are not marketing our high-quality food products to our own people in the way we should. My children tell me that they should not have palm oil. I do not even know if we have palm oil in the house. I tell them that eating steak is good for them. There is a narrative that quinoa and soy that come all the way across the world are better for us. I do not see the message about the protein of high biological value in our meat. The constant narrative is that agriculture and meat production are bad. As I said at the outset, we do not ever seem to make the point that we need the stuff on the shelf to live and to produce a good herd of humans.