At the outset I wish to thank the Minister, Deputy Flood, for taking the time to come into the House to listen to this debate and to respond to it.
We are talking about the problem which has arisen because of the fact that some 29 people showed toxic symptoms as a result of the consumption of cucumbers. The toxic symptoms were serious in three of those cases and it was necessary that they be treated for the toxicity by being admitted to hospital.
What has happened has created a great problem for the Irish food industry. It has caused a great problem primarily because of its effect on the image of this country as a producer of wholesome food. This problem has to be seen in the context of serious difficulties which the food industry has in relation to the abuse of chemicals. It is particularly to be seen in the context of the abuse of the Angel Dust drug in relation to animal production over the past few years. This seems to be one more instance in a pattern of the abuse of chemicals by food producers in Ireland and, in my view, the effects are absolutely disastrous. They are disastrous in relation to our international reputation and also in relation to the effects they have on our own consumers and on their confidence in the quality of Irish food products.
The case we are talking about today raises very serious questions in relation to the quality assurance programmes which are available in the food industry. It seems quite beyond belief that the origin of these toxic cucumbers could not be worked out until a fortnight or so after the incident occurred. I would have thought that the most basic form of quality assurance would have resulted in the Department of Agriculture and Food and in the producers of the cucumbers being able to identify where the cucumbers which gave rise to the toxic responses were produced. That is the basic feature of any quality control programme.
In some ways what is even more disturbing is the inability of all the resources of the State to identify the chemical or the agro-chemical which caused the toxic disorder. It is a matter of the greatest concern that what appears to be an agro-chemical in relatively common use could not be identified by all the agencies in the State for a period of a fortnight. It raises very serious questions about the technological capacity of the support services for the food industry. It is very disturbing that this chemical could not be analysed and identified so that the problem could be resolved at a much earlier stage than the period of time it has taken. This in turn, of course, also gives rise to the fact that there must be great concern in relation to the manner in which agro-chemicals are available and are used in this country.
As far as I understand the position, there is no need for those who use agricultural chemicals to have any education or training in their use. There is no need for the people who use these chemicals to even read the instructions for use. That is a very distrubing situation. It is intolerable and it is long overdue that the Minister should take some action to see that that set of circumstances is not allowed to continue.
The question must be asked, who is responsible for what happened? Is the responsibility to be placed on the producer of the cucumbers which now turn out to be toxic? Is the responsibility to be placed on the manufacture or producer of the chemical? Is the responsibility to be placed on those people who sold the cucumbers? I would be of the view that it should not be placed on the people who happened to sell the cucumbers. It would be quite unreasonable to expect them to be able to identify whether cucumbers or any food in their stores contained toxic substances of the type which appears to have caused the trouble in these circumstances.
A further question must be asked. What is the responsibility of the Government in relation to this matter? Is the problem a product of the indifference of the Government to the potential existing for the abuse of pesticides and herbicides over the years? This is a matter which on a number of occasions I sought to raise in this House. It is a matter which has been of some concern to quite a number of people in the past, yet there does not appear to be anything done about it.
One very unfortunate by-product of what has happened is that many growers and producers of cucumbers find themselves in a very serious and difficult financial circumstances because of the improper use of a chemical, or indeed perhaps because of the fact that the chemical was not suitable for the purpose for which it was used in the first place.
The Department of Health issued warnings. I do not have any objections to the Department of Health issuing those warnings because in the last analysis the welfare, safety and protection of the consumer has to be priority No. 1. However, he must recognise that when such warnings are issued producers who are not responsible in any way for the problem stand to suffer very serious financial losses. There are many innocent producers of cucumber who have done everything according to the book, who have had the highest possible standards and are now left in dismal financial circumstances because of what has happened. I believe there is a very strong case for compensating these producers in the same way as the Department of Agriculture and Food are prepared to compensate farmers whose animals turn out to be TB reactors or with who is the Department are quite prepared to do deals and to reach compromises when cases of mad cow disease are found. In those circumstances I understand the Department are prepared to negotiate with farmers and to try to reach some compromise with them to allow the herds to be depopulated so as to prevent the disorder spreading.
They are the main concerns which I have in relation to this problem. I want to reiterate that it is beyond belief in a country which stands to lose so much because of the damage to our reputation as a producer of wholesome food that we can allow a set of circumstances to evolve where it takes more than a fortnight to find the cause of what now would appear to be a fairly straightforward problem; in other words, pollution of cucumbers by the improper use of an agricultural chemical. I would have thought that the essentials of any worthwhile well equipped bio-chemical laboratory would have allowed them to analyse this compound, identify it and track it back to the source.
In relation to quality control standards in food, it is absolutely imperative that we should be able to work our way back to the source of any food product which give rise to the type of problems which we found over the past few weeks. I wonder is there an element of disingenuity when people talk in terms of mutations, of the fact that they could not work out whether these cucumbers were imported or home produced. I would like to hear the Minister's views on those questions.
