Martin Kenny (Sligo-Leitrim, Sinn Fein)

I am taking the question on behalf of Deputy Carthy.

This goes back to my question at the beginning about food safety and public health. The Mercosur deal is at the core of this but it is broader than that. We have an issue across Europe in that we are importing a lot of product from different parts of the world. In particular, the question about grain earlier was interesting because a lot of feed comes into the country from tropical climates. A situation could happen in the future - it is one of the things we need to be vigilant about - where we could bring in a parasite, or whatever it is, that causes a problem for our native species of grain or other products. That is one example. There are a lot of other examples of it.

It is important that the Minister reassure the public that the quality of food we get in Europe is up to the standard and is not being contaminated by food from other countries that is of a lesser quality.

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