Bernard J. Durkan
Question:248 Mr. Durkan asked the Minister for Health and Children the extent to which GM foods are for sale here, whether labelled or unlabelled; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [5336/04]
View answerWednesday, 18 February 2004
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Written answers
Under EU rules, only authorised GM foods, or foods containing ingredients thereof, can be imported and placed on the market. Ireland applies EU legislation on genetically modified, GM, foods.
The following GM foods are authorised for sale on the Irish market: vegetable oil from oil seed rape; vegetable oil from cotton seed; maize products; soya products. These products are normally used as food ingredients and the following are the food types in which the Food Safety Authority of Ireland, FSAI, have identified GM ingredients: vegetable casserole, gluten-free reduced sugar rusks, soya protein mince, soya protein chunks, soya biscuits and cakes, soya bran, soya flour, infant formula, soya cream, soya yoghurt, soya drink, soya dessert, lecithin granules derived from soya bean and maize meal, tortilla chips, taco shells, breadcrumbs for chicken and burger and corn snacks derived from maize.
However, the above list does not mean that there are not other food types on the market with GM maize or soya ingredients. Further authorisations of GM foods will only occur following full independent safety assessment by the European Food Safety Authority and will also be subject to the latest European regulations with regard to traceability and labelling.
Several EU regulations, including 258/97, 1139/98, 49/2000, 50/2000, govern the labelling of food products containing genetically modified organisms, GMOs. These have been updated by two new regulations, 1829/2003, which repeals 1139/98, 49/2000, 50/2000, and 1830/2003. These regulations which become applicable in April of this year, amend the current rules on the labelling of foods produced from GMOs to require labelling irrespective of whether DNA or protein of GM origin is present in the final product. Consequently, highly refined or processed food such as starch, sugar and oil products which may not have any residual DNA or protein will nonetheless require labelling if derived from GMOs. A traceability system will also be put in place to verify the origin of the food. Labels will have to indicate either "This product contains genetically modified organisms" or "... produced from genetically modified, name of organism". Operators will have to comply with these new provisions on labelling from April 2004.
Trace levels of GMOs in conventional food and feed can and do arise during cultivation, harvest, transport and processing. This is not particular to GMOs but can occur in the production of food, feed and seed with the result that it is very difficult to achieve products that are 100% pure. Against this background, the EU's objective is to ensure legal certainty and establish certain thresholds above which conventional food and feed have to be labelled as consisting of, or containing, or being produced from a GMO.
Under current legislation the presence of GM material in conventional food does not have to be labelled if it is below 1% and if it can be shown to be adventitious and technically unavoidable. The EU has now revised this to a threshold of no higher than 0.9% that will apply from April of 2004.
The FSAI is the competent authority in Ireland for the enforcement of EU legislation regarding the genetic modification of foodstuffs: the FSAI carries out checks on the marketplace for compliance with GM legislation.