Ahern queried on GM crop lobbying

The Taoiseach has been asked to respond to allegations that the Government was persuaded last year by senior figures in the US administration to support for the first time the allowing of a genetically modified crop into the EU.

Genetic Concern has written to Mr Ahern seeking clarification and to the Minister for the Environment, Mr Dempsey, who has responsibility for legislation on the release of genetically modified organisms and whose officials sit on a key EU committee.

This follows further details in the current issue of Phoenix magazine of the extent to which the Taoiseach was intensively lobbied while on a St Patrick's Day visit to Washington last year.

The US National Security Adviser, Mr Sandy Berger, met Mr Ahern and is reported to have pressed him on an EU vote to be taken the next day on a GM maize variety developed by the biotech company Agr-Evo

According to a Genetic Concern spokeswoman, Ms Sadhbh O'Neill, the significance of what has now emerged is that "the day after the Taoiseach met Mr Berger the Irish Government voted to approve a controversial genetically engineered crop for the first time". Ireland had abstained previously in the absence of a national policy on GMOs, although this year voted against two applications seeking EU approval.

The vote for, she said, occurred when the official Fianna Fail position was to support a moratorium on GM crops. "It shows that while the Government has been stubbornly refusing to respond to Irish citizens' and consumer concerns, it will pander to the agenda of the biotech multinationals, particularly in the US where the government refuses to segregate GM and non-GM crops."

Mr Dempsey, she noted, has repeatedly refused to meet Genetic Concern or any other group concerned about GM foods as a "consultation process" was in progress. "Yet the report from the process has been sitting on the Minister's desk since July, and he has still refused to publish it."

Combined with inconsistency on EU votes on GM foods, Genetic Concern believed, more than ever, the consultation process was a smokescreen, Ms O'Neill added. "The Government has been going behind the backs of the Irish public to support the release of unsegregated US GM maize across Europe," she claimed.

The implications of the US, the world's biggest GM crop producer, not segregating most of its GM and non-GM varieties, will confront EU agriculture ministers when they meet in Brussels later today to consider if animal feeds made from GM crops should be labelled.

Some member-states favour such a regime, though in present circumstances it is impractical and would be very expensive not only for the feed industry but also food processors. Most soya and maize imported from the US is used for feed, of which some 25 per cent is made from GM varieties.

The European Commission has consistently opposed a mandatory arrangement, a position supported by Ireland, in the hope that regulations relating to feeds and human food would be kept separate.

This position is increasingly difficult to defend, however, as feeds have been implicated in recent health scares and are, in effect, part of the human food chain.

But the Irish Commissioner, Mr David Byrne, who is due to attend today's meeting, is expected not to support mandatory feed labelling at this point as the much larger issue of labelling GM foods for human consumption is under consideration by the environment ministers' council. He will have a significant input into that process, since his appointment has repeatedly backed more extensive consumer-friendly labelling.

Sources close to Mr Byrne have denied there is any fallout over responsibility for GM foods within the new Commission, or switching of responsibilities likely.

The Environment Commissioner, Ms Margot Wallstrom, is responsible for environmental evaluation of GMOs, and he is responsible for their scientific evaluation including health implications, if any. Both have met on the issue and are happy with this arrangement. Green MEPs and Genetic Concern have been calling on Ms Wallstrom to be given ultimate responsibility for GM foods.