Vol. 561 No. 3
40 Ms McManus asked the Minister for Agriculture and Food if his Department has completed an investigation into a report from the British Food Standards Agency that beef from Ireland has been found in London markets which contained specified risk material; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [3868/03]
The incident to which the Deputy refers was brought to the attention of my Department on 16 December 2002 by the beef exporter who had been informed of the complaint by their UK customer. However, no public statement was issued by the Food Standards Agency, FSA, until reference to the matter was posted on the agency's website at the end of 2002. Thereafter, my Department was informed by FSA of the matter. Investigations into the matter have been concluded and the facts are as follows: consignment of vac pack beef which is commercially identified as a "full rib" cut was exported to a UK customer in the north of England. However, at the behest of the UK customer the consignment was, in fact, diverted to the Smithfield market in London. On inspection by an official of the Meat Hygiene Service, UK, at Smithfield it was found that attached to each of the ribs making up the cut was a small amount of bone remaining from the vertebral column; the vertebral column of bovine animals over 12 months of age is one of a number of tissues which, in the context of BSE, is identified as specified risk material and which is required to be removed and excluded from the food chain.
I am satisfied, however, that the finding of a small portion of the vertebral column in the cut of beef exported to the UK did not constitute a public health risk to the consumer for the following reasons: (a) the piece of vertebral column attached to the rib bone is associated with a part of that bone which is at some distance from the location of the dorsal root ganglia, DRG: (b) the rib and attached vertebral column would, in the course of normal commercial processing, have been removed prior to the beef being offered for sale or consumption; (c) the carcasses from which the beef in question was derived were of bovine animals under 30 months of age, produced in compliance with all of the extensive animal feed controls implemented by my Department. I am satisfied that the particular incident, while representing a technical breach of the regulations on specified risk material, did not, in any sense, place the consumer at risk.
