Thomas Byrne (Meath East, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

The Deputy has hit on an important point about corn. Russia is going around the world, blaming the EU for food prices, but there are no sanctions on food from Russia. There are no sanctions on corn and Russia is still free to export it because we do not want to interfere with the food supply. At the same time, Russia is trying to stop the food supply coming out of Ukraine, which is very important. I can give a detailed answer on that if the Deputy wants because many Members raised it. Russia is responsible for the shock to global food security. The blockading and destruction of Ukrainian ports has affected the least-developed countries and the most fragile countries, and it has also affected prices here, as consumers are seeing.

What are we doing? As I said, we can talk about it in the Dáil but there is also action happening. The EU is doing a huge amount of work to help Ukraine to produce and export agrifood products through different land routes and EU ports. Further efforts will be made through the rapid implementation of what is called the solidarity lanes action plan to bring Ukrainian grain back onto global markets.

As well as our efforts at EU level, we are also working on the issues at the UN. Ireland has signed up to the UN's roadmap for a global food security call to action, which includes immediate, medium- and long-term responses. There is a huge amount of work going on, as the Taoiseach outlined, between the UN Secretary General and the Turkish Government to facilitate the safe shipping of grain from Ukraine's ports. We want that effort to continue because the current situation is affecting everybody. We can complain in the Dáil about the price of food, as is our right as democratic representatives, but this is how we get the prices down. It is very hard to connect the supermarket shelf to a port that is destroyed in Ukraine but there is a direct link between them at this time. To clarify, there are no sanctions on Russian food products.

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