Ms Chris Allen:

It is clear that as the law stands, produce derived from the EU CAP-regulated farm crop was never considered to fall within the scope of the Irish misuse of drugs laws regulatory framework and these products were never subject to HPRA licence. In fact, in 2019 Hemp Federation Ireland asked the HPRA if it would license agricultural foods with trace amounts of THC. The HPRA replied in writing that it did not do so and did not envisage a situation in which it would issue such a licence as it does not consider hemp-derived foods containing trace amounts of THC to fall within the scope of the misuse of drugs regulatory framework.

From an agricultural perspective, the European Commission formally recognises the capacity of the hemp industry to meet EU CAP, farm to fork and climate policy objectives.

The financial benefits of hemp cultivation to EU farmers and rural communities are also highlighted by the Commission and, in both of these contexts, the Commission advises that all uses of hemp are important to consider when we look at the future development of the EU industry. In 2021, hemp was included in Article 75 of the CMO regulation by the Commission, and the THC content in EU hemp in the field will go to 0.3% in January 2023. A Commission regulation establishing EU authorised limits for THC in hemp foods in Europe is already written and goes to final stage scrutiny before the EU Committee on Plants, Animals, Food and Feed next week.

The Commission's support for the exceptional competencies of the hemp plant are very important considerations at this seminal moment of transformation in agricultural systems and practices. Europe is leading global efforts to tackle climate change under land use, land use change and forestry, LULUCF. The EU carbon cycles initiative is specifically geared to provide a basis for global buy-in and it envisages a globally operational carbon cycles framework going forward. The objective is to reform completely land use management and our systems of agricultural food production and to repair our soils. The second remit for farmers under the scheme is to grow biomass, which will green global industry, providing new fibre materials to replace fossil carbon. The carbon cycles system is designed hierarchically, with high protein, low energy vegetable food production at the top of the cascade. The world is witnessing the birth of a new currency, a new means of exchange, backed by a carbon reserve that farmers will hold in their lands.

Hemp sequesters more CO2 than any forest can and it is also the most complete plant-based protein known to man. In every context of the carbon cycle cascade, the crop is beyond compare. These competencies must be fully integrated at every point along the supply chain, from farm to fork and from seed to industrial solution, integrating farming and industrial practice at local level for a carbon neutral Irish, EU and global economy. Hemp is one of the most valuable agricultural commodities in the context of carbon budgets and the context of climate change.

The European Commission, global corporations and global banks have called repeatedly for European member states to ensure the carbon cycles programme is launched in a completely open, honest, ethical and transparent way to inspire farmers with confidence and security in the transition process. The Commission has insisted over and over again, at the very highest level, that the economic benefits of the new system must go directly to farmers and that those economic benefits must constitute additional farm income. As the roll-out of the EU carbon cycle initiative gets under way across Europe, in Ireland earlier applications of unlawful economic sanctions by the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine and the Strategic Banking Corporation of Ireland, SBCI, have enabled the Department to propose a development plan for our industry where two thirds of our traditional incomes no longer exist.

Hemp Federation Ireland would like to expand on how the environmental aspects of this industry actually function and how the industry should be developed to best capture the fully integrated environmental, economic and social returns for our country. Today, however, our submission must focus on the extraordinary regulation of the hemp industry in Ireland since 2018. From that time, almost every rule and regulation governing the operation of our industry has been changed without prior consultation or subsequent explanation. This was achieved by suspending Ireland's observance of EU laws in direct and indirect ways, steering all conversations away from the agricultural and environmental potentials of the crop. The Oireachtas record shows that the long-standing official representation of the hemp industry by Irish Ministers for Agriculture, Food and the Marine changed suddenly and dramatically in 2019. All mention of our food produce is removed and the Misuse of Drugs Act is invoked for the first time, alongside terms such as “strictest levels of control”. This change effectively rebrands hemp as cannabis and transfers responsibility for our agricultural industry from the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine to the Department of Health.

The Department of Health then began transforming the regulatory framework surrounding our agricultural markets and supply chains in consultation with pharmaceutical and tobacco companies. No regard was ever shown for democratic principles throughout, none of the regulatory interventions have ever been justified by science, as is required by EU law, and, as a result, our national farm-based sector is no longer able to function. The Irish farmers and operators encouraged into the sector by previous Irish Ministers for agriculture, with the support of Departments and Government agencies, are now facing 14-year prison sentences for possessing the very same CAP-regulated farm crops they were previously encouraged to embrace.

The lobbying returns show that, throughout this entire time, Irish Ministers, party leaders, senior civil servants and successive Ministers for health were engaging in consultations on hemp with a global tobacco corporation now repositioning to capture the emerging global hemp markets. These same public officials have consistently refused to engage with Irish hemp farmers and business owners operating in the sector for decades - the people who built this agricultural industry and who earn their living in the sector.

In 2020, commercial control over all elements of our agricultural crop, our farm revenues and our industry value chain was transferred by the then Department of Business, Enterprise and Innovation to pharmaceutical companies. Enterprise Ireland removed all access to State enterprise support from all Irish hemp farms and businesses, including Covid-19 supports. Only pharmaceutical companies can now access business support for any commercial activity related to any part of the EU hemp crop in Ireland. When questioned in the Dail as to whether industry bodies were consulted beforehand, the then Minister for Finance replied that the Minister for Health decides who the relevant stakeholders are. Many such issues are described in detail in Hemp Federation Ireland's letter of September 2021 to the Secretary General of the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine, which is available on our website. I have provided some examples for the information of the committee.

The EU hemp industry is protected under primary EU regulations and Article 34 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union, TFEU, and by three separate EU Court of Justice decisions. The operators who work in the sector on farms and in shops and businesses throughout Ireland are entitled to the protections afforded to all EU citizens under the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights. I hope the committee will be able to protect the Irish hemp industry and prevent further transfer of our industry to pharmaceutical companies before the pending High Court review of the matter is decided in Ireland in July.

I thank the committee members for their time and attention in understanding what is a difficult and complex situation.