Under EU Food Safety legislation, primary responsibility for the safety of food placed on the market place lies with the food business operator. The role of my Department and other agencies working under service contracts with the Food Safety Authority of Ireland (FSAI) is to verify compliance by the food business operators with this requirement. This is done by a combination of inspection of establishments and by audit of the food safety management systems which operators are required to have in place. These controls are applied at different stages in the food supply chain. It is important to point out that the key controls carried out by my Department, under its contract with the FSAI, relate to food safety. The matters that were the subject of the recent incident did not give rise to a food safety issue.
The FSAI, as part of overall surveillance and monitoring of the food chain, carried out this random survey against a background of increasing prices of raw materials used in food and feed manufacture, and the global sourcing of ingredients. In conducting this survey, a problem was uncovered which might otherwise have gone undetected here, or been discovered first in out overseas markets. I am confident that the eventual impact and outcome will be positive for consumers and for the reputation of Ireland as a producer of safety and wholesome food. As seen from recent developments, the problem has developed into a pan European investigation of food fraud involving a range of meat products and traders/food business operators. Accordingly, I have arranged a meeting in Brussels tomorrow with EU Commissioner for Health and Consumer Policy Borg and other relevant Ministers to consider the wider EU implications of the recent revelations concerning the presence of horse meat in beef products. I have also requested Irish manufacturers of processed meat products to carry out DNA testing and to work with the FSAI in developing testing protocols for this purpose.
