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Keep Ireland Potatoes GM-Free 1:15 at Dail

international | environment | event notice

Tuesday February 14, 2006 20:36

by freek

Chance to meet an plan for resistence to Corporate GMO trainwreck

Call on EPA to prohibit GMO potato experiment

Irish farmers, food producers and consumers will hold a public protest at the entrance to the Dáil at 1.15pm on Wednesday 22 February to call for the Government to ban genetically modified (GM) crops in Ireland, and prevent the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) from authorising the release of GMO potatoes in Co. Meath.

22 February is the deadline set by the EPA for public submissions on a proposal by BASF Plant Science GmbH to conduct a five-year GMO potato experiment at a Teagasc research centre in Summerhill, Co. Meath, located near the Hill of tara in the Boyne Valley, one of the oldest cultivated sites in Europe. The experiment is due to begin this April and continue till October 2010.

There will be a related press conference at 12.30pm at the Georgian Room in Buswell's Hotel on Molesworth St. Due to space limitations, the press conference is restricted to the media and politicians only, but all speakers will join the public protest at the Dáil entrance at 1.15pm.

Prof. Joe Cummins (Emeritus Professor of Genetics at the University of Western Ontario, Canada) has issued a scientific warning that this GMO experiment presents a clear risk of contaminating conventional and organic Irish potatoes.

Prof. Cummins accused BASF of making specious assumptions that could also produce toxic effects on humans and wildlife, adding "The people and wildlife of Ireland should not be exposed to inadequately tested genetic constructions".

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Highlight of Protest and Press Conference

by freeek

Thu Mar 02, 2006 14:53

Very successful protest gathering http://www.gmfreeireland.org/potato/photos.php

Dr. Elisabeth Cullen
Co-founder, Irish Doctors Environmental Association (IDEA).
There have been no published papers of possible
health effects of GM foods [on humans], but animal trials have given serious, serious cause for
concern. I have documented here the recent animal trials and they are very very worrying.

Kathryn Marsh
Member, Organic Trust Ltd. Member of the EPA’s GMO Advisory Committee
There is a complete democratic deficit in the treatment of GMOs in Ireland. There is only one route
for ordinary Irish people to get their voices heard. And only four of us — four individuals in Ireland
— have had a chance to use that route. They are Father Seán McDonagh, myself, David Jeffries,
and Eanna Ní Lamhna, as representatives of stakeholder organisations on the EPA.
Everybody else, on every committee that rules on GMOs in this country, has an interest in
furthering biotechnology and GMOs. They are all either university scientists with their research
funded by the biotechnology companies, or they are actually employees of biotechnology
companies themselves. This is something to be borne in mind when we see that the Food Safety
Authority says it’s OK, the Bioethics Committee of the Royal Irish Academy says it’s OK, the Inter-
Departmental Committee on GMOs says it’s OK. All of those are advised entirely or almost entirely
(there are some exceptions on the Bioethics Committee where the medical profession is also
involved), they are all advised by those with a financial stake in the biotechnology industry.

M.O'C
Ireland has never voted against GM crops out of about a dozen votes in the European Parliament
and the Council of Ministers. We have actually played a leading role in getting GM crops legalized.
the intellectual property rights agreement that gives corporations the right to patent GMO crops came in to the WTO under Peter Sutherland, and Irishman, the Europeanwide embargo against GM crops was terminated two weeksbefore he left office by David Byrne, as European Commissioner for Health and Consumer Affairs, to the great annoyance of the majority of EU member states who are against GM crops.

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Keep Ireland Potatoes GM-Free 1:15 at Dail

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