Vol. 507 No. 4
31 Mr. S. Ryan asked the Minister for Agriculture and Food the recommendations, if any, his Department has made to the Food Safety Authority of Ireland on the type of cattle which abattoirs should accept; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [16942/99]
The clean livestock policy is set down in the Abattoirs Act 1988 (Veterinary Examination) (Amendment) Regulations 1998. These regulations were introduced in February 1998 and extended the grounds under which a veterinary inspector may declare an animal unfit for slaughter for human consumption to include the condition of the hide, fleece or skin of an animal. The purpose of the regulations is to ensure that conditions of the hide, fleece or skin of the animal is not such as, when slaughtered, to risk contamination of the carcase and thereby create a risk to public health.
On delivery to a factory animals are categorised into five groups. Depending on the category, cattle may either be accepted, require certain dressing procedures or be rejected for slaughter. Rejected cattle may be re-presented when they meet the required categorisation.
My Department was represented on a Food Safety Authority of Ireland working group which recently produced a report entitled The prevention of E.coli 0157: H7 Infection, a shared responsibility. Chapter 4 of that report made a number of recommendations in relation to abattoirs and primary processors including a recommendation that only cattle meeting the standards of cleanliness of categories 1, 2 and 3 of the clean livestock policy should be accepted.
