I hope I have the correct question because I submitted two. There are four issues that are separate and significant but share a common thread. Last November in Kells, County Meath, there was an important Samhain festival and food symposium. It was an excellent symposium attended by Darina Allen, where a lot of topics around food security, food safety, biosecurity, health and soil health were discussed, including the school meals programme, the possibility of sourcing these meals as locally as possible and integrating local suppliers, chefs, shops such as SuperValu and Centra, etc. There were excellent books on the issues of ultra-processed food and the production of food. All of that was linked in to chronic diseases such as cardiovascular disease and diabetes, which are on the increase. That is the first issue.
The second issue concerns a family of seven brothers - seven sons and three generations of succession farming in action. They are all tillage farmers and acknowledge the excellent support of the tillage support payment that was made. However, grain from 2025 is still in storage and we have imports from other markets with genetically modified components to them.
The third issue is a land-use plan, which we are still waiting on, and the implications for renewable fuel and solar production. The tillage farmers are having difficulty accessing land to lease or purchase to produce the native grains and legumes that we require.
We know we have the cost-of-living crisis and the issues around the cost of fuel. They are all linked. There is then the point of defending ourselves and biosecurity and the food that we eat, whether it is imported or we produce it ourselves. With the balance of land availability to produce the food we need but also to produce renewable energy, we have possibly a defence situation.
My condensed question stems from Canadian Prime Minister Carney's presentation last week at Trinity College. It is something he also said, I think, at the World Economic Forum, and that is the question about sovereignty. There is much debate and discourse on social media and in the media on the interpretation of sovereignty vis-à-vis borders, migration etc. However, I am going to link sovereignty to our ability to feed ourselves, fuel ourselves and defend ourselves along the lines of the remarks from the Prime Minister of Canada. What specific steps are being taken to ensure we can feed, fuel and defend ourselves?
