Cathal Crowe (Clare, Fianna Fail)
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I want to ask the Minister of State about how, three years ago across the water, Marcus Rashford, who is known to most of us as a famous footballer, led a very impressive campaign that was in fact misunderstood by the British Government at the time. He was seeking that during the off-school period, there would also be meals provided to children. The idea was superb but I would say as a teacher who taught children for 16 years, it would need to be targeted at the most disadvantaged areas. We have statistics on that through Pobal and the DEIS categorisation for schools but that campaign was very much misunderstood. The primary school year is 183 days. Three additional days are discretionary closures. For 180 days, less than half the year, children are in school and they are at home for the other half. As things can slide off the scale very quickly, would the Minister of State give any consideration, in conjunction with his colleague, the Minister, Deputy Humphreys, to extending that?

As I have skin in the game in this regard, I must disclose that I farm organically at home but at present,15% of Irish farming is organic including beef, milk production, honey, grains and the whole lot. When I made the switch two years ago to organic beef farming, I made an alarming discovery. You rear an animal through best practice, you do not inject, you do not spray your land with fertiliser or pesticides and it is a really high quality, healthy animal that is produced before it is finished, slaughtered and prepared for the meat industry. The reality is, however, there is no end market in Ireland for most of those animals. They end up being sold conventionally through the mart system. I could debate this all day but to cut to the chase, but the IFA has made submissions to the Department that for State contracts for school meals, hospital meals and the Prison Service, the State should be trying to, where possible, insist that the contracts include organic food such as grains, vegetables, meat, etc.,and fish, although not all fish is organic. They certainly should be trying to do that so we are at least, as a State, leading out with best example. Most State vehicles are now transitioning to electric vehicles and surely, as a State, we could say there is good reason here to have State food contracts that are based around the organic industry. It ensures that the organic portion of the market, which is 15%, becomes a closed circle. At present, the cattle that I will sell in October have been reared for two years as organic animals. They will be sold conventionally in the mart in October and they will exit that food chain for which they have been set up.