Dr. Thomas McLoughlin:

There have been concerns. The technology is more than 30 years old and has been used worldwide, especially in North America and South America. Most of the soybean that we import is GM and the corn is GM. In fact, a good argument for the GM potato is whether consumers in Ireland would eat a potato that was not sprayed ten or 13 times during the year? The other question I have is that organic farmers in Ireland and elsewhere in the European Union are allowed to use copper sulphate to control potato blight fungus. Copper sulphate is actually a heavy metal from copper. It is crazy that such products are on the market. To have consumers using a GM potato has to be much safer but, as Dr. Doyle Prestwich said, communicating that message to the public is hugely important.

One of the Deputies asked whether there were any concerns over the years. The big concern 30 years ago with herbicidal tolerant plants was that those plants would become invasive within the environment. That did not happen. However, we have a lot of invasive species in the west of Ireland. In my own part, Achill Island, there is gunnera. There are rhododendron and Japanese knotweed all over the country and no one is doing anything about it. They are not even on the list at the EU because they are out of control, yet we are worried about something that probably will never happen with a GM crop, let alone CRISPR. I think the CRISPR technology is much safer again and, as I have stated, is the same as traditional plant breeding and GM technology. Communicating it to the public is very important. An example is the GM potato and perhaps the Teagasc representatives will mention that when they come in later.