I am taking the question on behalf of Deputy Carthy. This goes back to my question at the beginning about food safety and public health. The Mercosur deal is at the core of this but it is broader than that. We have an issue across Europe in that we are importing a lot of product from different parts of the world. In particular, the question about grain earlier was interesting because a lot of feed comes into the country from tropical climates. A situation could happen in the future - it is one of the things we need to be vigilant about - where we could bring in a parasite, or whatever it is, that causes a problem for our native species of grain or other products. That is one example. There are a lot of other examples of it. It is important that the Minister reassure the public that the quality of food we get in Europe is up to the standard and is not being contaminated by food from other countries that is of a lesser quality.

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The Minister mentioned in a previous reply that quite a small amount of beef from Brazil comes into Ireland and that there is no evidence of this issue. Is the evidence being looked for? What kind of investigations are we carrying out into that, from an Irish and European perspective? Similarly, we have a large amount of poultry coming in under the Mercosur deal. I think it is 180,000 tonnes. We need to be vigilant in respect of that. We have a large poultry industry in Ireland and we eat a lot of poultry so we need to ensure it is of the highest quality. I will go back to the issue raised earlier about feedstuffs. A lot of feedstuffs are imported into this country from Latin America and other tropical climates. That is displacing Irish grain and feed and if we are to be authentic about the quality of our food, we need to ensure that the authenticity can be stood over. For example, people were before the committee recently to speak about growing grain and, in some cases, the only thing that is Irish in Irish whiskey is the water. That is a very bad situation. We need to be authentic about the products we produce and to do so not only from the point of view that they are what they say on the label, but also that we can guarantee their quality. The only way we can guarantee their quality is if we produce the ingredients as well as the finished product here.

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It is balance.

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I accept that. I understand the point that we cannot produce everything in Ireland. That goes without saying. However, there is an issue regarding the authenticity of the product that we produce if we are labelling it and selling it as Irish and as having that authenticity around it, yet everything that goes into it is coming from somewhere else. We need to find that clear balance in respect of that. Regarding Mercosur, safeguards have been put in place. They have been voted through. There were no amendments made to those safeguards, yet a lot of countries, including Ireland and others of like mind, have expressed sincere difficulties with how far those safeguards go. That raises a red flag for a lot of people out there. How genuine is this Government and the other governments that it is meeting with around Europe in making sure that we block this trade deal and find a way forward to protect consumers and farmers in Europe?

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