Catherine Noone (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I welcome Ms McGuinness and am very interested in the issue under discussion today. While I hope to discuss it with Ms McGuinness at some other time, I wish to follow on in particular from the points made by Senator O'Neill and to elaborate further on that point. I was horrified to think that in a pack of four chicken fillets from Tesco or any similar shop, each fillet could be from a different country. I find it horrific that if they are touched in Ireland in any way, they can be designated as Irish produce. As Ms McGuinness noted - this is the kernel of the issue - people must become more educated. One cannot, as a government or as a leader, tell people what they are going to eat. Moreover, while labelling might be present, people may not read it. However, one should be confident that if something claims to be Irish, it is Irish. I would be interested in learning how Members could legislate or put in place some sort of code of conduct for producers to emphasise that when people see something labelled as Irish, that is what they want and not something that is Turkish, Afghan or from all sorts of other origins.