I move:
In view of the serious lack of confidence in consumers of beef internationally, Seanad Éireann calls on the Minister for Health and Children to come into the House and discuss the BSE crisis from a public health point of view.
I welcome the Minister for State. I was very careful about the wording I used in this motion. I used the words ‘internationally' and ‘discuss'. I am disappointed at the Government's amendment. I believe that my motion is not contentious, yet the Government proposes to delete everything after the words "In view of" and then substitute something else. Having listened to what is said and having looked at my motion, I hope the Government side will not push the amendment. I would have some difficulty withdrawing what I have put down.
Unfortunately, we are now well used to discussing the BSE crisis in this House; we have done it so often. However, we usually do so from the producer's viewpoint rather than from the perspective of the customer. For once, I would like to approach this question from a different angle. To ask us to look at the BSE crisis from the viewpoint of the customer is not in any way to denigrate the size of the problem from an agricultural perspective. I am on the Joint Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine and I find that often I am the one that thinks of the customer first because of the business I am in rather than those who think of the farmer's interests. Both are important.
As I said in this House before Christmas, the recent turns in the BSE story have made it not just an agricultural problem but a problem of national significance. I can fully understand and empathise with the feelings of the farmers. At the Joint Oireachtas Committee we recently had a delegation from the workers in the processing plants who feel hard done by in this matter. Nevertheless it would be of benefit to look at the problem from the customer's point of view. That benefit will go to the agriculture sector as well. My motion was purposely worded to look at it from the customer's point of view as opposed to the producer's point of view.
The one lesson which emerges above all from this sorry saga is that we have moved to an age where the market for food in general, and meat and beef in particular, is firmly driven by customers rather than producer concerns. We have got to get that message across to everybody. The sooner we all face up to that change, the better we will be able to cope with the situation that results from that very change. The traditional position which held until quite recently was that the market followed the producer. The producer produced the goods and then looked for somebody to buy them. The customer featured in this scenario only incidentally as the person who actually consumed the meat at the end of the chain. That applies not just to meat but to the whole production of food in general. The tradition was so producer driven that at times it sought to do away with the customer altogether. If customers would not buy, goods would be produced and put into storage rather than into the market. We did that for so long. Those days are gone forever. We have to get that message across, particularly to the farming community and to those in charge of that area.
The change to a market focused industry might have happened gradually over many years if it were not for one thing. The BSE problem identified on 26 March 1996 changed everything. It was a wake up call for customers throughout Europe and further afield. Suddenly overnight they were thrust from a situation where they never questioned the safety of the beef they ate to one where there were major question marks over it on an international basis. Within the space of a few months in 1996 customers showed that they were calling the shots. In the face of the BSE threat they responded with the only power available to them – they stopped buying beef altogether or stopped buying it from places where they thought it might be infected with BSE.
One can say their reaction was unjustified and was created by scare stories in the media. However, that is beside the point. Within a matter of months the balance of power in the European food market had changed decisively and customers were calling the shots. Governments were slow to respond to this change while producers were even slower. Once the change had been made there was no going back. The days when the public took the safety of food for granted were over and they were no longer prepared to take the say so of the producer.
At that stage they wanted an independent scientifically based voice to tell them what was and was not safe. They no longer believed what producers or the Department of Agriculture told them. They felt, rightly or wrongly, that the Department was a spokesperson for the producers. Out of all this emerged the realisation that food safety was not an agricultural issue to be decided on agricultural terms but that it was a customer issue and, more precisely, a public health issue.
What does this mean now? It means that our approach to food safety issues like BSE should be driven from the perspective of the customer, not from the perspective of the producer. It should be driven from the perspective of public health, not from the perspective of farmers. If it is driven from the customer angle all the focus should be on getting it right from the customer's point of view. I strongly believe that if we succeed in getting it right from the customer's point of view the producer's side will look after itself. In other words, what is in the customer's interests is also in the interests of the food industry, certainly in the long term and maybe also in the short term.
The biggest task in Ireland and across Europe and, to some extent, across the rest of the world is to rebuild confidence in the safety of meat. In 1993 I was a member of the expert committee on food which established An Bord Bia. When we put forward the proposal to establish An Bord Bia my proposal was a minority one and I did it with reluctance as I was not able to convince the rest of the committee that An Bord Bia should be placed under the aegis of any Department other than the Department of Agriculture. I knew then that this was right and that if we wanted to have a food industry we had to be careful to ensure it was driven by customers, the market and those who buy rather than by those who produce. We are again making the same argument in strong terms. Rebuilding confidence depends crucially on what producers do and how they behave. They cannot expect to be judges in their own case. Customers want an impartial intermediary to tell them what is right. This is why the Food Safety Authority of Ireland is responsible to the Minister for Health and Children, not the Minister for Agriculture, Food and Rural Development. I was delighted the Government made that decision when that case came up. This is why David Byrne is the EU Commissioner responsible for food safety, not the Commissioner for Agriculture. That is the system we have to work with and the system we have to work to.
One of the questions which arises is whether we are working well enough to it. A fortnight ago – this is what really galls and worries me – the EU decided to ban the sale of T-bone steak in several countries, including Ireland, but not including Britain or Portugal. The customers I met on the shop floor had full confidence in Irish beef before they read that a scientific veterinary committee based in Europe with no bias had said that Britain and Portugal are okay but Ireland and a number of other countries had not convinced it. This is what has worried and frightened customers. Unless the Minister tells us something else, we have nobody to blame but ourselves. In 1996 we, like the rest of Europe, recognised the crisis. However, what we did was not enough to convince the veterinary people in 2001 that we took the right steps.
This ban two weeks ago created a furore among the agricultural community. I want to focus on its effect on customers who were devastated by the decision. They were devastated because from the beginning of the BSE crisis they had been encouraged to see Britain as the main source of BSE. During the early days most people were prepared to buy beef as long as they were sure it was Irish beef, that is, beef from the Twenty-six Counties, the Republic. It was a firm part of the public's picture of events that while we had a limited BSE problem it was nothing compared with that in Britain. However, suddenly a few weeks ago we heard the reverse, that British beef was safer than Irish beef. This single piece of bad news had a more devastating effect on the public than anything else over the past several years. It totally conflicted with what they had firmly believed up to then and it seemed to come from an authoritative source. Of course it is not true that Irish beef is less safe than British beef. I certainly do not believe that, but given the enormous damage such a statement can make there is something wrong somewhere along the line that mistakes of this kind can be allowed to happen.
This goes back to what I said earlier – the new situation demands that everything is driven from the perspective of the customer which crucially includes how the customer perceives the situation. An added difficulty is that once the customer's perception on an issue shifts, it is difficult to shift it back, regardless of the truth.
I look forward to an interesting debate on this important issue. I look forward to a debate from the customer's point of view and from the point of view of trying to find out what went wrong. How is it that such damage has been done in the public's mind and how can we correct this? In 1996 we had the ball at our feet and Britain was in trouble. However, four and a half years later we are the ones who are told by an independent committee of veterinary scientists, "You have a problem, you have not convinced us that you have solved it but Britain and Portugal have convinced us". We have a case to answer in this instance.