Vol. 407 No. 1
175 Mr. Byrne asked the Minister for Agriculture and Food if, in view of the vast problems of starvation and hunger extending across the African continent combined with the plight of the Kurds in Iraq, he will agree to release substantial quantities of the huge stocks of food held in intervention storage as a humanitarian gesture in an attempt to alleviate these crises; and if he will make a statement on the matter.
The Government are very concerned about this matter and will continue to support Community initiatives aimed at providing food and other humanitarian aid to the needy and, where it is possible to do so, the use of Community stocks for this purpose.
The disposal of the public stocks currently in intervention storage in Ireland is the responsibility of the European Commission. When it can appropriately be used it is provided for food aid. Not all of the stock is suitable to meet immediate aid needs — much depends on the facilities in the potential recipient countries and refugee centres. In a Community context, the matter of humanitarian food aid is primarily the responsibility of the General Affairs Council (Foreign Ministers).
As regards the plight of Iraqis of Kurdish origin, the informal European Council meeting of 8 April at Luxembourg agreed an aid allocation of 150 million ECU (IR£116 million), one-third of which is directly funded by member states including Ireland.
