Governor general on state visit

"Worm farms are terribly fashionable in New Zealand. Have you ever seen one?" asks Dame Silvia Cartwright, Governor General of New Zealand.

Ms Cartwright has been in Ireland since last Tuesday for a state visit, staying at Farmleigh. She leaves today for a state visit to Crete. Worm farms might seem a rather esoteric topic to be discussing over coffee in Farmleigh, but New Zealand, which is aiming for a zero-waste policy - something Ireland can only yet dream of - is admirably imaginative in its methods of waste disposal.

"You buy a worm farm and feed them all your household scraps and vegetable peelings," she explains. "Most households have one."

The aim for zero waste extends to landfill sites. Last week, Ms Cartwright visited a recycling centre on the North Island which has been established at the local landfill site and which is hoped will be the model for all other such sites in the country.

Once the non-perishable waste arrives at the site, it is all sorted. Tyres, wood, clothes, furniture, household goods etc are stacked in groups and clothes are washed. Some items are recycled. Everything is then sold: the idea is that nothing actually remains in the landfill site.

The governor general of New Zealand is appointed by Queen Elizabeth. Most appointments are for five years, and it is chiefly a symbolic role, with the governor general acting as a kind of ambassador for the country on overseas visits. The post has existed in one form or other since 1854, and she is only the second woman to hold it.

Ms Cartwright, who drove around Ireland in a camper-van for a week 30 years ago, is from Dunedin on the South Island and will finish her term of office in August.

She has had a highly distinguished career as a lawyer and jurist. In 1993, she was the second woman in New Zealand to be appointed as judge to the High Court. When she completes her term, she will be one of an international panel of judges sitting on Cambodia's Extraordinary Chambers Tribunal at Phnom Pehn, which will try former senior members of the Khmer Rouge.

She has sat on a United Nations committee monitoring compliance with the UN Convention to Eliminate All Forms of Discrimination Against Women.

Among her formal engagements here, Ms Cartwright has made a formal visit to Áras an Uachtaráin; attended a State dinner at Dublin Castle hosted by President Mary McAleese; visited Leinster House and attended a lunch hosted by the Tánaiste at Iveagh House. She also seen the Book of Kells and visited Newgrange.