Seán Crowe (Dublin South West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I have one or two questions. Deputy Maureen O'Sullivan spoke about bio-fuels. I attended a conference at which the Minister of State, Deputy Costello, spoke about how Ireland was pursuing the possibility of reducing the bio-fuels limit to 5%. It is extraordinary that companies are buying good land in Africa and poorer countries around the world - they are essentially land-grabbing - and using this land to plant bio-fuels rather than to grow food. At the same time, Europe has a policy of setting aside viable land because it does not want to produce too much food. Perhaps that land could be used for bio-fuel production. There needs to be a register of European companies that are involved in land-grabbing so that people can know what Irish, German or French companies are up to. That would give them an opportunity to lobby their Governments and use their spending power to show these companies that their actions are seen as unacceptable. Does the Minister of State have a view on the matter? The relevance of Europe's set-aside policy to this issue struck me in recent days. It came up earlier when I attended a meeting with the Minister. There seems to be an obvious relationship between the two issues. I know that many farmers are totally opposed to, or do not like, the idea of agricultural land going fallow.

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