Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

As I did not answer Deputy Ferris's questions earlier, I will answer them now and then comment on Senator Ó Domhnaill's questions. Rangeland's three samples indicate the involvement of two different companies based in Poland. Certainly the labels suggest these companies delivered product through a meat trader arrangement. Both of these companies also delivered to Silvercrest. One of the companies is a deboning plant which brings in material from four or five different slaughtering houses. All of those plants are EU-certified. I understand the Polish authorities are currently testing product from these plants.

I wish to correct a comment I made earlier. Use of the term "mechanically recovered meat" is inappropriate because it is illegal to mechanically recover meat. The proper term is "desinewed meat". It is important that we do not discuss something that is illegal if it is not happening, although I think we can be forgiven as amateurs in this game.

Product from these companies has been coming to Ireland for a couple of years in respect of Silvercrest. We do not know whether the problem existed six, ten or 18 months ago. Our investigation is focused on the burgers produced in January, which confirmed the existence of a problem in the system and explained how the finding of 29% equine DNA in a burger could have occurred. We have some library samples from the batch but we still do not have any of the ingredients that went into that burger. Our focus has been on the burgers produced in January because we have the ingredients that went into them. It is likely to be the same, for obvious reasons.

The burgers are being moved out of the plant today, under supervision. I understand they are going for rendering, if that is the correct terminology. We are trying to allow Silvercrest to move on from this affair. Jobs, families and livelihoods are seriously affected and any new customer who sources from Silvercrest will want to start from scratch with a plant that has been sanitised and deep-cleaned and is operated according to an entirely new structure. We are proceeding on this basis for the reasons I outlined earlier. As we still have 140 different samples of burgers and ingredients, I not sure we will gain anything by keeping large volumes of this product in cold storage.