Seán Crowe (Dublin South West, Sinn Fein)
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461. To ask the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine if his attention has been drawn to the fact that the European Commission’s Standing Committee on Plants, Animals, Food, and Feed will meet in March 2018 to discuss a report from the European Food Safety Authority regarding the dangers that neonicotinoid pesticides pose to native bee populations; and his views regarding the banning of neonicotinoid pesticides, such as clothianidin, imidacloprid and thiamethoxam, in advance of this meeting. [13752/18]

Michael Creed (Cork North West, Fine Gael)
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The European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) updated its risk assessments of the neonicotinoid substances clothianidin, imidacloprid and thiamethoxam recently, publishing its revised assessments on 28 February 2018. These assessments are a comprehensive evaluation, rigorously peer reviewed by Member State experts, of all relevant scientific information that has become available since 2013. EFSA’s conclusions were discussed at the Standing Committee (Pesticide Legislation) meeting on 22-23 March 2018.

These assessments will be further discussed at the Standing Committee and this process, when concluded, will include the normal tabling of a formal commission proposal for vote by Member States on authorisation.  In determining its position with regard to any vote, and as occurs with all chemical authorisation, my Department will give careful consideration to the wording of any Commission proposal tabled and its reflection of the detailed scientific risk assessments carried out by EFSA. Ireland is mindful of the need for a very high level of protection for bees.