Feargal Quinn (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the witnesses and thank them for coming before the committee. Most of the questions I was going to ask have been covered. Mr. Dempsey spoke about consumer foods and there is a danger involved in introducing an obesity tax. I raised this matter in the Seanad last week and spoke about what has been done in Denmark. There is little doubt it has shown a dramatic increase. It abolished the taxes it had imposed, some of which had been in place for a long time. It did so because it was losing business across the border into Germany. We will also lose business if we introduce such a measure.

We are part of Europe and I was concerned to hear about a statutory code of practice. How would a statutory code of practice be enforced on a company whose headquarters and purchasing is based in Düsseldorf, Munich or London? We would end up discriminating against Irish-based companies such as SuperValu and Dunnes Stores, which would have to comply with certain measures not applicable to companies based outside of Ireland. I believe in the marketplace and a measure such as this is not possible. Such a measure must be on a voluntary basis.

I gather a number of supermarkets in Ireland have put a limit on the number of packets of baby formula one can buy because they were being exported. Mr. Barry explained very well why this had to be done as it could damage us. What other threats exist with regard to reaching the 2020 targets? The main threat would be another food safety scandal, such as happened with regard to the pigmeat three or four years ago when it turned out pigs were being fed bread which had been returned but left in the package. We must forcibly insist on watching this issue. We were able to identify the horsemeat out of the blue because we were the only country to check it. Are there other measures we can take to maintain food safety?