Mary White (Fianna Fail)

I compliment the Minister, Deputy Michael Kitt, on the tremendous endeavours he is applying to his job as Minister of State with responsibility for overseas development. He is the right man for the job because he has tremendous empathy for people, as I have said previously. Everyone is aware that the principle of Fairtrade is to support the producers of raw materials such as cotton, coffee, cocoa beans, fruit and bananas. As Senator Norris said, these products are grown in former English, French and Spanish colonies that generated wealth for those countries through the use of slave labour.

The Fairtrade organisation was set up to ensure local farmers receive a fair price for their produce. This invariably means that Fairtrade raw materials extract a premium over non-Fairtrade material. In the case of Fairtrade chocolate, for example, there is a premium of 50% per tonne over normal chocolate, that is, producers get 50% more. In the past 12 months questions have been asked in the international media whether all the premium pricing built into the ingredients is being passed on to producers. However, in principle, Fairtrade is an excellent idea and has enjoyed huge support in the UK and Ireland through satisfying consumers' needs to do something tangible for emerging nations.

Fairtrade producers can set aside funds for community projects such as schools, clinics, training, improvement in the quality of product, sustainable production and providing a decent standard of living for the people who work for the Fairtrade producers so their children can be educated. Education is the stepping stone to developing one's potential and leading a full life. The benefits of Fairtrade are not reaching all Fairtrade farmers because there is insufficient demand for their crops. No one else today has pointed that out. Producers sell an average of 20% of the crop at Fairtrade terms, selling the rest through the world market at far lower prices. Fairtrade is an ideal, inspirational product issue for young people who can encourage the shops, businesses, restaurants and coffee shops in their areas to sell and use Fairtrade products and the universities and colleges to ask their suppliers and service providers to use Fairtrade goods.

It is a source of great pleasure for everyone in Ireland that Dublin has been awarded the title "Fairtrade Capital City" following a two-year campaign to attain the coveted status. The Irish Fairtrade Association presented Dublin's Lord Mayor, Mr. Paddy Bourke, with a plaque to mark the event at a ceremony in Dublin City Hall in recognition of the city's efforts to encourage the public to buy Fairtrade products. Council staff, retailers, schools and universities joined the campaign to help Dublin achieve the coveted status and approximately 120 shops and 60 catering outlets across the capital have signed up to sell Fairtrade products. Dublin has become the latest European capital, along with the likes of Rome and Edinburgh, to support the growing worldwide movement, which is a form of marketing that promotes the payment of a fair price for products from developing countries in a bid to fight poverty and inequality.

As the Lord Mayor of Dublin, Councillor Paddy Bourke, said, "Irish people are a very generous people by nature." The Minister of State knows that the various fund-raising campaigns for fighting famine and poverty in Africa have been generously supported by Irish people. They are unique in the world in that regard.

As Mr. Peter Gaynor, director of Fairtrade Mark Ireland, said recently:

Everyone knows Fairtrade makes a difference. It doesn't change the world on its own but it contributes to real and lasting improvements in the lives of hundreds of thousands of Third World producers.

The Co-Op supermarket chain in the United Kingdom, which was once the largest retailer of Fairtrade branded products, plans to switch all of its own-brand teas to Fairtrade and to stop selling eggs from caged hens as it tries to reclaim its position as the country's leading ethical supermarket chain. The Co-Op began stocking Fairtrade products a decade ago. British sales of Fairtrade goods are now running at £400 million annually, an increase from £290 million in 2006. There is now intense rivalry between Marks and Spencer, Tesco and Sainsbury to surpass the Co-Op in Fairtrade sales. Marks and Spencer has set itself the goal of becoming Britain's greenest retailer by 2012. It only stocks Fairtrade coffee and tea and claims to buy one third of the world's Fairtrade cotton. Tesco offers the largest range of Fairtrade products, with 140 lines, including mangoes, basmati rice and honey.

My company, Lir Chocolates, supplies the Co-Op supermarket chain in the United Kingdom with many of its high-end premium chocolate offerings, made from Fairtrade products. We had to satisfy the Fairtrade authorisation requirements in the United Kingdom to source our Fairtrade ingredients, such as chocolate, coffee, strawberry and caramel flavours, and so forth. It was my pleasure to participate in this discussion today.