Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 1 July 2008
127 Deputy Joanna Tuffy asked the Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Food the initiatives in place to ensure organic food is not mislabelled thereby protecting the consumer; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [25584/08]
View answerI am fully committed to ensuring that consumers can have full confidence in the organic food they buy. For that reason my Department has assigned additional resources to the Organic Unit and the staff involved are now systematically inspecting retail outlets, including supermarkets, shops and farmers markets, checking to ensure that all product identified as organic has been produced fully in accordance with the organic regulations.
The introduction of the European Communities (Organic Farming) Regulation 2004 (S.I. No 112 of 2004) gave my Department powers to prosecute contraventions of Council Regulation (EEC) No. 2092/91 on organic production and indications referring thereto on agricultural products and foodstuffs. This Statutory Instrument was amended in October 2007 to grant significant additional statutory powers to my Department officials to enable them to carry out their work in a more effective manner. To date two prosecutions have been successfully brought for labelling product in contravention of these Regulations. In addition, there have been two seizures of incorrectly labelled produce.
