Dáil Éireann Debate, Thursday - 18 December 2014
240. Deputy Bernard J. Durkan asked the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine the extent to which labelling and traceability continues to be effective throughout the food industry with particular reference to beef, lamb, pig meat, poultry, fish and fish products; the extent to which breaches have been identified in the past four years; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [49422/14]
View answerThe Food Safety Authority of Ireland (FSAI), under the aegis the Minister for Health, has overall responsibility for the enforcement of food safety and labelling requirements in Ireland. It carries out this remit through service contracts with my Department and other agencies including the Health Service Executive (HSE), Local Authority Veterinary Service and the Sea Fisheries Protection Authority. Inspections to ensure compliance with traceability and labelling legislation are carried out by inspection services provided by these agencies under the aforementioned contracts. Under EU law primary responsibility for the safety and traceability of food placed in the market place lies with food business operators. The role of my Department is to verify compliance by the food business operators with this requirement.
Regulation (EC) No. 178 of 2002, which sets out the general principles and requirements of EU food law, stipulates, among other things, that food business operators at all stages of production, processing and distribution within the businesses under their control must ensure that foods satisfy the requirements of food law. Specifically in regard to traceability, the regulations require that food business operators must have systems in place to be able to identify any person from whom they have been supplied with a food. They must also have a system in place to identify the other businesses to which their product has been supplied. In other words a food business operator at each and every stage in the food chain must be able to identify the source of its inputs as well as having details of the first recipient of its output. This is commonly referred to as the “one step forward one step backward” traceability system.
My Department has a permanent veterinary presence at all its approved slaughter plants. Controls at stand-alone secondary processing plants are carried out at a frequency which is based on an annual risk assessment for each plant. An annual audit of imported products is carried out in each Department approved meat plant. The audit includes physical identity, labelling and documentary checks. This includes product originating both in EU Member States and third countries. In addition, labelling and documentary checks form part of the routine checks conducted by Department officials.
Rules on the labelling of meat and meat products are laid down in EU legislation. For beef, the current rules require compulsory origin labelling, with place of birth, rearing and slaughter specified.
In 2011, the European Union passed a new Council Regulation on Food Information for the Consumers (FIC), Regulation 1169/2011, which will be implemented by way of EU Commission implementing regulations and has updated the requirements for consumer information and labelling in a number of areas, including as regards country of origin labelling for a range of products. As of 1 April 2015, meat from swine, sheep, goats and poultry must be labelled with an indication as to where the animal was reared and where the animal was slaughtered. My Department will, following a consultation process early next year, give effect to this requirement by way of a Statutory Instrument. The FIC also requires the European Commission to produce reports evaluating the mandatory indication of origin or place of provenance for different products including milk, milk used as an ingredient in dairy products and ingredients that represent more than 50% of a food. These reports may also be accompanied by proposals to modify the existing legal provisions.
The European Commission has already produced a report on meat used as an ingredient and the reports for the other products were due to be presented by 13 December 2014 but have not yet been published by the European Commission.
The FSAI has advised my Department that the number of inspections where non compliance with labelling legislation were found over the last four years are as follows:
|
Year |
- |
|
2010 |
9,919 (14.04%) |
|
2011 |
9,499 (15.98%) |
|
2012 |
9,415 (14.68%) |
|
2013 |
7,855 (14.63%) |
The majority of these were minor and remedial action was taken.
