Ms Niamh Brennan:

Gas is being added to some of them to prolong their shelf life. The Deputy mentioned onions, and Ireland historically had a good onion industry. Now we have the retailers looking for growers to supply onions again. The reason for this is the price that was being offered for onion growing was well below anywhere in Europe. This was because the environment to grow and dry onions on the Continent would have allowed the European growers a huge competitive advantage over Irish growers, who would have had to dry the onions with heat, etc., which has cost associated with it. The import of produce has extended the shelf life of products. The point I was making about the onions is that now we have retailers looking for Irish onions on our shelves again but, unfortunately, they will have to pay above what is being offered on the European market if growers are going to be able to afford to produce them.