asked the Minister for Industry and Commerce if any steps have been taken to correct the situation regarding the labelling of packaged food referred to in a question of 9th May, 1973.
Ceisteanna—Questions. Oral Answers. - Consumer Protection.
63.
The review of consumer protection legislation which was being carried out by the National Prices Commission was entrusted to the National Consumer Advisory Council, who reported to me on 10th December last. Their report will be published in a matter of days. I may say that one of their recommendations is that there should be an obligation on manufacturers and distributors to provide accurate informative labelling on the composition and other characteristics of appropriate articles. I shall be considering this and other recommendations at a very early date.
64.
asked the Minister for Industry and Commerce if the National Prices Commission has given him its views on the question of consumer protection so that he may make an order requiring that the ingredients be printed on each package of sausages and displayed where sausages are sold loose.
I take it the Deputy is referring to his question regarding designation of ingredients on prepacked foods to prohibit inadequate or false descriptions. As I said in my reply to his earlier question, a false description of the kind he then instanced would be an offence under existing law. The Food Standards Bill, which I mentioned in my reply to the earlier question, has in the meantime become law, on the 12th June, 1974. It enables the Ministers for Health, for Agriculture and Fisheries and for Industry and Commerce to provide by regulations for standards in relation to food. The standards to which it is intended to give legal effect under the Act are principally food standards prepared by the EEC or under the Codex Alimentarius programme of the FAO and the WHO, in the preparation of which this country has been participating for some time. The various standards as they emerge will be implemented under the Food Standards Act or other appropriate legislation.