Professor Alan Reilly:

It is simple: we did not test previously. We have focused on other categories of food, such as farmed fish and wild Atlantic salmon, cod and other fish products in batter, and honey. This was the first time we investigated the species going into meat products. My colleagues from the Department can answer the question about the length of time these practices might have been ongoing but the results from the UK indicate that 17.1% equine DNA was found in a burger produced for the Co-op in April 2011. The Department may have data going back further than that.

I share members' concerns about consumer protection. Our job in the Food Safety Authority is to protect consumers' health and interests. In protecting consumers' interests, we must ensure foods that are on the market are labelled correctly. That was the rationale for investigating this area. We do not at present plan to investigate other meats. Our focus should be on putting systems in place to ensure this does not happen again.

With respect to the UK, we are in daily contact with our colleagues from the Food Standards Agency in both London and Northern Ireland to share intelligence. They are carrying out a similar study to ours and we shared our methods with them. They will be investigating similar types of product for sale in UK markets. Members will have read newspaper reports over the weekend regarding halal pies supplied to UK prisons. That is part of their work. Essentially they are taking a lead from us in doing similar work. Some of the larger supermarkets and companies are conducting similar testing processes.