Ms Chris Allen:

Yes. All hemp foods were classified as traditional foods in Europe in 1997. In 2019 the EU's committee on novel foods had another look at hemp and classified it as a novel food. That means it falls under EU regulation 2015/2283. Ireland now adopts a completely different position. In Europe one needs to have a novel food authorisation from the European Commission. That costs somewhere in the region of €3 million. Our Irish companies and farmers who have been active in the sector for many years now have those applications under way with the European Food Safety Authority. The Food Safety Authority of Ireland, FSAI, has said that Ireland does not agree with Europe that hemp is a novel food. Hemp remains a traditional food in Ireland. However, the FSAI then said that under the novel food regulations, it is going to start removing some of the CBD products from the market in Ireland. Indeed, it has done that and it continues to remove CBD products that have authorisation in Europe. This means that whatever small amount of potential trade is left to this industry after all of the extraordinary regulation will be gone. There will be no potential for European trade from Ireland because the products to which Ireland does not apply the novel food regulations would require those regulations to be valid in European markets. The whole industry is completely unnavigable, even for me as a member of a representative body. It is very difficult to operate in this environment.