As Mr. Dardis said, safefood is a North-South body which reports to the health Departments on either side of the Border on an operational basis. Its headquarters is located in Little Island, County Cork. It has a sub-office in Dublin. It does not have a physical presence in Northern Ireland. The board had a budget of €10.2 million, or £9 million, last year. The Department of Health and Children provides 70% of the organisation’s funding, with the remaining 30% coming from the Northern Ireland Department of Health, Social Services and Public Safety. The ratio of funding is dictated by the ratio of population on the island. That is how the figure comes about. The body has 30 permanent staff, 23 of whom are located in County Cork and seven in Dublin. The organisation’s governing legislation provides that the chief executive shall carry out all the functions of the body under the direction of the North-South Ministerial Council. The chief executive is assisted by a 12-member advisory board, of which Mr. Dardis is chairman, and an 18-member scientific advisory committee. There is 50-50 North-South representation on the board and the committee.
I wish to compare the roles of safefood and the Food Safety Authority of Ireland. The FSAI is the national body with responsibility for enforcing food law in Ireland. As Mr. Dardis said, safefood does not have an enforcement role but is tasked with the promotion of food safety and healthy eating and the development of collaboration in such areas. Another key difference is that the statutory role of the FSAI does not extend beyond this jurisdiction, whereas safefood operates in both jurisdictions. The relevant legislation provides for safefood, at the request of the North-South Ministerial Council, to review and advise on the adequacy of the food enforcement arrangements in place across the island. No such request has been made to date. The key function of safefood is to promote food safety as a responsibility shared by the entire food chain. The organisation is also charged with giving advice on healthy diets. In addition to broad awareness campaigns, it has also developed specific programmes for specific target groups in schools, work settings and communities. We promote, commission and fund research to try to acquire evidence that underpins our promotional and educational activities.
I will outline what happens when there are food alerts such as in the case of the recent withdrawal of pork products. Primary responsibility for the management of such alerts rests with the enforcement agencies in each jurisdiction — the FSAI in this jurisdiction and the Food Standards Agency Northern Ireland on the other side of the Border. safefood plays a key role in advancing scientific co-operation, particularly between laboratories. Food laboratories play a key role in identifying sources of pathogens when outbreaks of disease take place. We have established a number of networks to improve the responsiveness and capacity of laboratories. In partnership with laboratories and food safety agencies on either side of the Border, we have developed an enhanced information technology system that will greatly improve the speed with which information can be shared. If detailed testing of pathogens is required, all samples from both jurisdictions are sent to Great Britain for testing. As time is of the essence when outbreaks of disease take place, it would be preferable to have a testing service on the island of Ireland. However, we have to ensure such a service meets the highest international standards. This is something we are examining, at the request of the North-South Ministerial Council. We are consulting key stakeholders.
In addition to our collaborations on food borne disease, safefood is also engaged in partnerships in respect of nutritional surveillance. Members will be aware that obesity is one of the greatest public health challenges facing developed countries. If we are to tackle the problem of obesity in the coming years, it is vital that we have good evidence of how it is developing. Such evidence will help us to develop communications strategies and maximise the effectiveness of our messages. In 2005 safefood initiated a programme of two comprehensive screening exercises a year in the three-year period. Each review exercise profiled a specific food category; described the relevant food safety and nutritional issues pertaining to it at various stages along the food chain; and identified opportunities to communicate the human health benefits to and influence the behaviour of the various stakeholders. The primary focus of the review exercises was food safety and nutrition. Certain other consumer concerns not directly related to food safety such as labelling and quality assurance schemes were also commented on in the review exercises.
The pork sector was the subject of one of the review exercises mentioned. The full review was published on 24 November 2008, just before the withdrawal of pork products. Copies of the summary document have been made available to members of the committee. The review highlights that prior to the difficulties that arose before Christmas, consumers had few concerns about the safety of pork or the industry enforcement controls in place. It is clear from the review that consumers wish to increase their consumption of lean and fresh pork. Some 85% of people on the island of Ireland eat pork products. More than half of the pork we eat is processed — bacon, sausages and ham — which is almost always high in salt and has varying fat and meat content levels. The review has found that children of primary school age in the Republic of Ireland eat twice as much processed pork as lean pork. Just 22% of children between the ages of five and 12 eat unprocessed pork. Some 59% eat bacon, while 65% eat sausages. The review points out that consumers can decrease their total fat and saturated fat intake and thereby reduce their risk of cardiovascular disease by choosing leaner cuts more often.
The current dietary advice on the island of Ireland supports the recommendation of the World Cancer Research Fund that high levels of consumption of red meat and processed meat are linked to a number of cancers. In the light of the large levels of consumption of processed pork products on the island of Ireland, however, we suggest a more practical and achievable interim goal for many consumers would be to gradually reduce their intake of processed meats. We advise parents to balance the amount of pork their children eat by introducing more unprocessed pork into their children's diets or by using leaner cuts of fresh pork. On average, pork, an excellent source of iron, has a lower total and saturated fat content than other red meats such as lamb and beef. Fresh pork is also a source of essential nutrients such as phosphorus, zinc, potassium, magnesium and the B vitamins.
The safefood review found that consumers had confidence in the safety and integrity of the pork supply chain. The concerns of consumers centred on the health implications of processed products in terms of cholesterol and blood pressure. In response to health concerns regarding salt levels in foods and, more specifically, a negative focus on processed meat products, the pork industry is moving to reduce the levels of salt in pork by 2010.
The review also highlighted the need to harmonise the approach to the control of salmonella in pork in Northern Ireland and the South. The importance of an all-island approach to control schemes to minimise the incidence of salmonella species in pigs is underlined by the fact that almost 40% of pigs slaughtered in Northern Ireland originate in the South.
The document circulated to the committee is a summary of the full report which is available on our website, www.safefood.eu. I will provide copies of the full report, if required.
