Kathryn Reilly (Sinn Fein)

I welcome the Cathaoirleach of Cavan County Council, Seán McKiernan, to the Chamber.

I echo the sentiments of other Senators on welcoming back our Special Olympics athletes. As a Cavan person I would like to pay special tribute to John McKiernan from Bawnboy in County Cavan, who is coming home today. As previous speakers have said, there will be celebrations.

I ask the Leader for clarification with regard to the statements on food safety planned for later this afternoon. Are these the statements on food labelling that were requested a few weeks back? If so, I must voice my concerns at the fact that the Minister for Health will not be present for the debate. Why is the Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Food attending this debate, given that the labelling issue falls under the Department of Health's remit? If these statements will not include the issue of food labelling, when can we expect a debate on it, given that the European Parliament will vote this week on a compromise text regarding nutritional and energy content of product labelling and country of origin food labelling?

Will the Minister for Finance attend the House before the summer recess to clear up some issues relating to the budgetary process? Yesterday, he added an extra €400 million to the cuts target for this year's budget, which will now amount to €4 billion. Exchequer returns show that one in every five euro of Government revenue is spent servicing our growing debt. Will the Minister attend the House to clarify whether the target for this year's cuts will remain at €4 billion or continue to increase in the run-up to December's budget?