Feargal Quinn (Independent)

I second Senator O'Toole's proposal to debate the Schengen Agreement motion today. I am not sure why we are not debating the motion or why it is proposed not to have that debate. Last year I wrote an article for The Irish Times on this matter and I received much comment stating it was ridiculous Ireland was the only country out of the EU 27 that decided to join Britain's travel arrangement. I accept part of the reason for this was because Northern Ireland may present a problem. However, one needs photo ID to travel from Northern Ireland to England, Scotland and Wales. We should debate this issue and should not allow it to go past without debating it.

I seldom disagree with Senator Ross but I believe the new appointee to the chairmanship of Bank of Ireland is an ideal choice. He left the day-to-day running of the bank 12 years ago and, therefore, was not involved in the period when it was tainted by property development. He is the right sort of person to have at the bank - professional and, even more so, 71 years of age. I am delighted there is no age discrimination in this case.

Will the Leader draw to the attention of the relevant Minister the suggestion yesterday from the UK Environment Secretary that supermarkets do away with best-before and display-until labels? Up to 1 billion people go to bed hungry every night when every year in the UK up to 6 million tonnes of potatoes, 4 million apples and 1 million loaves and slices of ham are thrown out. This is because people misunderstand the difference between use-by, best-before and display-until labels. These are used by supermarkets for stock control. It does not mean one cannot eat these foods. Serious consideration should be given to doing away with these labels. With people starving across the world, we should not be wasting the amount of food we do.