Feargal Quinn (Independent)

It feels a little like the end of school term today. I am not going to call for a discussion on the economy because we will have the opportunity to do that tomorrow. However, like at the end of school term, we should give ourselves some homework to do. This should apply no matter who we are, whether Members of the House, civil servants of Departments, Ministers or citizens.

One of the major topics of discussion at the G8 meeting currently taking place in Japan is the question of food shortages around the world. Some 20% of the world's population consumes 80% of the world's food. I have just come from a meeting of the Joint Oireachtas Committee on European Affairs where we heard from both Oxfam and Trócaire, who talked about the significant problems that exist. Although I do not intend to talk about the economy today, I hope that when we consider the savings we will make, we do not drop the ball with regard to the target we have set for ourselves of trying to reach 0.7% of GDP for developing aid before 2012. We must ensure we do not drop it, as we are not really achieving what we set out to do in that area.

Another area of concern is the amount of waste food that exists. The figures published in Britain yesterday suggest that 6.7 million tonnes of food are thrown away every day by households. I gather if one adds what those nasty supermarkets do, the amount of waste is huge. I inquired from Repak whether it could supply figures in respect of Ireland and, while it could not supply the exact data, it indicated that the proportionate amount of waste would be 337,000 tonnes. I am not sure how we achieve that but it is apparently almost one third of everything we buy in supermarkets. This is a matter which we as a nation can address by saving the food we currently waste and buying only what we need to consume.

Last week, the Joint Committee on Agriculture, Fisheries and Food heard an interesting presentation from the professor of genetics at Trinity College Dublin, who spoke about using science to produce better food. I know that talk of genetically modified organisms sends shivers up people's backs but let us keep an open mind on what we can do, both as individual citizens and collectively as a nation, to increase the production of food globally. We need to avoid taking our eyes off the ball, particularly in regard to encouraging the G8 to meet the targets they have set. It is possible for us to achieve much more.

The other figure which frightened us is the increase in world population from its current 6 billion to 8 billion by 2025. We may not be able to produce sufficient food for that population if we do not do something about it. At present, one person in the world dies from hunger every minute. If that is happening now and matters could become worse in the future, we should do everything we can as individuals and as nations to solve the problem.