John Gerard Hanafin (Fianna Fail)

I ask the Leader to invite the Minister of State with responsibility for European Affairs, Deputy Dick Roche, to the House to debate the current situation regarding world food security. I make this call because I am very conscious of the positive steps being taken regarding bio-fuel. However, because a large percentage of world productive capacity is now moving towards the production of bio-fuel, there has been a drought in Australia and an increase in demand from China and India, there is now a developing food shortage and the commodity prices of items such as rice and wheat are increasing substantially. At the moment, the security level of the world food supply is quite low. There should be 90 days of reserves, but supplies are well below that level. I suggest that this is an opportunity for this country to ask the EU to examine this issue in the context of the possibility of increasing food production because we have the capacity here to increase such production significantly.