Pat O'Neill (Fine Gael)

I welcome the Minister of State, Deputy McEntee. I disagree with Senator Quinn that we must be prepared to promote all new scientific developments in regard to food production. Napoleon said an army marches on its stomach.

Food safety is one of the most important issues in the world today. The world has to produce 70% more food from its land by 2050 so the challenges for food, fuel and fibre safety and security will be enormous. We in Ireland must set up the best global food safety scheme because food safety cannot be looked at in isolation. We must be at the forefront of the mind of the Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Food when policy is being formulated in discussions around CAP reform and trade agreements with non-EU countries, particularly the South American states.

Let us look at the recent food scares - the baby food in China, the bean sprouts in Germany and in Ireland the pig feed issue in Wexford, a problem which we dealt with immediately. A system must be in place to enable us to deal with such problems immediately. In this regard food production in Ireland must be the safest in the world. We must strongly promote our excellent record when marketing our products abroad.

Currently, we are producing enough food to feed 36 million people. The Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, Deputy Simon Coveney, has set a goal of producing enough food for 50 million people into the future. The Minister has been very proactive since assuming his role and has spoken frequently of his desire to promote the Irish agrifood industry and to increase Irish exports. He announced recently that our agrifood exports grew by 13% in the first five months of this year and predicted a growth of more than €600 million for a second consecutive year. While some industries have grown rapidly and then imploded, Irish agrifood has remained a constant reliable pillar of our economy since the foundation of the State and that is what we need to continue. People will always want to buy high quality food and the ability to produce excellent produce, using the highest standards of production values, is a core strength of Irish agriculture.

A significant step in linking our country with top quality food was taken in May when Queen Elizabeth II visited the English market in Cork. Viewers in the UK and around the world may have been surprised to see the quality of the produce that the Queen viewed. Of course, Cork's status as a "foodie" location has been well known in Ireland for many years and now a global audience is aware of it. The whole island will benefit from these images of the Queen admiring the produce that was available in Cork.

The Harvest 2020 report, which contains a programme to increase exports, is already ahead of its targets in some areas. Its targets have included an increase of 20% in the value of beef output in nine years but this target was upgraded to 40%. I urge the Minister and the Minister of State to ensure that the strongest best practice framework is in place to protect the integrity and reputation of Ministers of the member states farming interests. The E. coli outbreak was handled very badly and all member states must take a lesson from the incident. I am confident that the Minister and Minister of State will ensure protocols are in place to protect Ireland's reputation as being at the forefront of food safety.