Tackling world poverty and ending global hunger have long featured among the rhetoric of world leaders, governments and international institutions. Yet in 2010, an unprecedented number of people, 1.2 billion, are living in hunger and poverty. A business as usual approach will not deliver food security, sustainable agriculture or poverty reduction. If we are to tackle hunger seriously then it is time that a right to food approach is given primacy in shaping global, European and Irish policy and actions. Such an approach requires political courage and leadership. It means making political choices directed towards the pursuit of the common good. In practical terms it means ensuring our endeavours in aid are not undermined by commercially driven policies in food, agriculture and trade. This comment piece outlines what a right to food approach and policy coherence demand from and can contribute to the global, European and Irish responses to hunger.