The Food Safety Authority of Ireland was established in 1998 as the national body with responsibility for the enforcement of food law in Ireland. The establishment of the FSAI, one of the first such independent food agencies in Europe, followed the collapse of consumer confidence during the BSE crisis and several other food scares of the 1990s. The FSAI is a statutory, independent and science-based agency, dedicated to protecting public health and consumer interests in the area of food safety. The FSAI was set up to be independent of the food industry and operates under the aegis of the Minister for Health and Children. The remit of the FSAI covers the safety of food whether produced or marketed in Ireland. The FSAI is governed by a board of ten members which is assisted by an independent scientific committee of 15 members and a food safety consultative council of 24 members.
The principal function of the FSAI is to take all reasonable steps to ensure that food consumed, distributed, marketed or produced in Ireland meets the highest standards of food safety and hygiene. We are also charged with bringing about the general acceptance that the primary responsibility for safety of food is borne by the food industry across the food chain. In the past ten years, the FSAI has worked in partnership with all interested parties to ensure a consistent standard of enforcement of food legislation and to underpin food law with science-based risk assessment.
Enforcement of food law is carried out on behalf of the FSAI in partnership with other State bodies, known as official agencies. These act as agents of the FSAI under a service contract system. The main official agencies are the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, the local authority veterinary services attached to city and county councils, the environmental health function of the Health Service Executive, the Sea-Fisheries Protection Authority and the Marine Institute. These agencies are accountable to the FSAI for their food safety programmes, their standards of work and their actions in food law enforcement.
The FSAI audits the agencies for their compliance with the terms of the service contracts. The FSAI also coordinates the activities of these agencies to achieve the most effective and efficient use of these State resources in protecting the health and interests of consumers. The service contract process provides a mechanism for co-ordination and harmonisation of food safety control delivery and allows the FSAI to keep under review the efficacy of the inspection services nationwide. All service contracts are published on the website of the FSAI.
As well as our food law enforcement role, the FSAI seeks to promote the highest standards of food safety and hygiene. To this end, the FSAI aspires to develop a culture of food safety in Ireland by engaging with those who can directly improve food safety practices. Stakeholders include the food industry and its representative groups, as well as consumer groups and State agencies that can positively influence food safety standards. Apart from our role as a food law enforcement agency, the FSAI advises both the Department of Health and Children and the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food on scientific and technical aspects of food legislation and participates in expert working groups of the European Commission.
The FSAI employs a staff compliment of 84 whole-time equivalents, many of whom are technically qualified to higher degree level. All of the professions concerned with food safety work together in the FSAI under one roof. The expertise available includes environmental health, human medicine, veterinary medicine, microbiology, biotechnology, toxicology, nutrition, food science, analytical science and agriculture. The FSAI is funded by the Exchequer and received a total grant of €18.9 million in 2007 of which €7.8 million was allocated directly to the local authority veterinary service.
A major feature of the past five years has been the implementation of new food legislation. The authority has facilitated this through the provision of training and guidance for food inspection officials, seminars, the publication of codes of practice and guidance notes. Following on from the introduction of new regulations, the authority ran two advertising campaigns in 2007 addressing food labelling and the legal traceability requirements on food businesses. In addition, a number of major reports were published aimed at supporting the work of food inspection officials and supporting regulatory compliance by food businesses. These included: Guidance Notes on Product Recall and Traceability, HACCP Compliance, and Development of Guidance Material for the Safe Feeding of Reconstituted Powdered Infant Formula; two reports on Zoonoses in Ireland; a report on The Labelling of Food in Ireland 2007; the first Multi-Annual National Control Plan for Ireland, which was forwarded to the European Commission; and an information leaflet for businesses and a guidance note for inspection officers on the requirements of the Health (Country of Origin of Beef) Regulations 2006, concerning the declaration of origin of beef in restaurants. In addition to a comprehensive range of technical publications, food businesses and food inspection personnel can also avail of information from the FSAI website and advice from a specialist advice line.
During the second half of 2007, the FSAI received and processed more than 300 submissions from food businesses wishing to make nutrition and health claims under newly introduced EU regulations.
A total of 45,503 food establishments were supervised by the official food agencies in 2007. In addition, a total of 211 food incidents, ranging from accidental contamination with, for example, glass, bacteria and chemicals, including product recalls, were handled by the FSAI, and enforcement officers in the official agencies served 37 closure orders, six improvement orders and 15 prohibition orders on food businesses for serious breaches of food safety legislation. Most closure orders were served on catering establishments and the FSAI is continuing to support the development of standards among small businesses through its training programme. The FSAI also brought a successful prosecution in the case of one company found to have used illicit meat labels and the repackaging, re-labelling and distribution of meat on both sides of the Border.
Upon the foundation of safefood, the Food Safety Promotion Board, following the Good Friday Agreement, the FSAI Act 1998 was amended to avoid duplication of roles and requiring the agencies to co-operate in the performance of their functions. In addition, the annual budget of the FSAI was adjusted to allow for the transfer of some functions to safefood, for example, assessment of food-borne disease surveillance data; research activities; and advice to the public on food safety and hygiene.
Networking and co-operation between the food safety agencies on the island of Ireland has been a priority in recent years for the Food Safety Authority of Ireland, FSAI, the Food Standards Agency of Northern Ireland, FSANI and safefood. Good working relationships have been established across the agencies at all levels and formal memoranda of understanding have been signed between the agencies that set out a framework for co-operation between the organisations. I signed a memorandum of understanding with safefood shortly after taking up my post in 2004 and signed a similar co-operation agreement with the Food Standards Agency, Northern Ireland, in 2005 covering the handling of cross-Border incidents, an area that had been highlighted by safefood.
The FSAI and safefood maintain a close working relationship. The CEOs meet on a monthly basis. In addition, there are regular meetings of technical and communication staff to co-ordinate activities. Examples of collaboration between the agencies include the FSAI, safefood and FSANI creating the All Island Food and Nutrition Forum, now renamed the Obesity Forum, to promote collaborative and co-ordinated activities in the area of public health nutrition. This alliance sponsors annual seminars on topical nutrition subjects. In May 2007, a co-sponsored seminar entitled Dietary Habits: The Evidence for Change, was organised in Dublin and was attended by personnel and board members from all three agencies. Senior staff from the Food Safety Authority of Ireland and Food Standards Agency of Northern Ireland participate as members of the scientific advisory board of safefood which meets regularly. Staying in contact and sharing information on work programmes avoids overlaps and duplication of activities.
A collaborative project between both safefood and the FSAI was undertaken to improve the collection, analysis and dissemination of national food surveillance data through the development of a national food surveillance database. In collaboration with FSANI, these data will, in time, be used to compile a national profile of food surveillance on the island of Ireland.
The support by safefood of the introduction of new laboratory information management systems, LIMS, in the HSE laboratories has led to ongoing improvements in the analysis and sharing of food analysis data with the FSAI. In the area of collaboration, there is the salt reduction programme. A complementary approach has been adopted whereby FSAI facilitates initiatives by food manufacturers to decrease the amount of salt added during manufacturing in parallel with public information campaigns by safefood directed at influencing consumer behaviour.
Since the establishment of the FSAI and safefood, much progress has been made in the restoration of consumer confidence and the development of higher standards of food safety and hygiene. A special Eurobarometer report on risk issues in 2006 reported that, among Europeans, the Irish and the Maltese were the most positive about progress in food safety in the past ten years. More recently, external recognition of the progress made has also come in the form of a World Health Organisation food safety award for the FSAI and several “excellence in communication” awards.
In the past few years, food regulatory agencies such as the FSAI have been in transition from exclusive concern with food safety to addressing nutrition as well. Nutrition and health claims are becoming a major focus of the food industry and will be a more challenging area to regulate than food safety. Authorities such as FSAI will face a different landscape in the future as regulations become more harmonized, global trade in food products increases and the food chain becomes more complex. At the same time, it will be important for the FSAI to continue to pursue a consistent, proportionate, efficacious and efficient approach to food law enforcement.
