Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael)
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I will take those questions in reverse order. As regards labelling, if a product is a pure meat product, it must have country of origin labelling wherever it goes and there must be full traceability right back to the farmyard. Ireland has better traceability than any other country of which I am aware in terms of its systems and how they work. The problem arises with processed food. When multiple ingredients are going into the food, there is no requirement for country of origin labelling under current EU labelling rules. Perhaps that is something that should change. I would certainly like to see some change there, but that would bring challenges as it is not as simple as it may seem.

With regard to the loose comment that this has been dragging on for a number of weeks, it is important to point out that within 11 days of us starting our investigation, we established the source of the problem. Nobody else had managed to do that. ABP, Tesco and Burger King could not do it, despite the fact they were all trying. In a plant of that scale and size and given the testing resources we had available to us and the time needed to test, check and verify the results, it took time to get the facts right so as to ensure we could stand over them. It is true another week has passed since then, but we are now focused on the supply chain and I hope the Garda and the special investigation unit can be helpful in that regard. I have explained why I brought them in.

With regard to why the Polish side is not here, I must be careful I do not extend my decision making capacity beyond Ireland. Our job is to try to get to the bottom of what happened here. We sent as much information as we have available to Poland so that they could see this is not a case of us pointing the finger without significant information to back it up. We want to work with them to solve this problem and to find out who is responsible, whether those responsible are in Ireland or in Poland or somewhere in between. We cannot get away from the fact that we have details of containers that came from Poland over a three-day period in one case and over a ten-day period in another. Those records are now being examined again and are very much a part of the investigation as to how they came here, the transportation company involved, whether the container seals were intact and all of the other standard issues when investigating this type of activity.

The comment was made that everybody knew Silvercrest was an open mess. I did not know that. Certainly everybody did not know that. Our inspection team, which has been visiting Silvercrest on a monthly basis for some time, did not know that. Therefore, it was not commonly known. We must be careful with our language. People's livelihoods and jobs are on the line. I will certainly not stand over or protect practices that are inappropriate and when there is bad management, I am happy to expose it. My understanding is that Silvercrest operated on a two ten-hour shift basis and people came and went. Large volumes of burgers were being produced in what is a very modern plant. I agree there was some bad management and the company must answer for that now. Horse DNA came in through product that should not have come there and we must now establish whether people knew about that. I have no evidence now to suggest they did. I will not cast aspersions on anybody, regardless of who they are, unless I have evidence to back them up.

The Department does not have a shortage of manpower to deal with this issue. Many of the people involved in this investigation are women and there is no shortage of human resources involved.

There was a question on whether there is a difference between the types of trimming used. There is and there is a grading system based on the percentage of visible lean, whether it is 80% or 90%. The grading system has an impact on the price. Members can see an example in the document of a product that came in from Poland, which is described as frozen beef trimming 80:20. This refers to the visible lean reading. With regard to the age of the frozen beef trimming after which it should not be used, I think the period is 18 months. All of the products we tested were supplied in 2012, with the exception of one batch from 2011. Perhaps Professor Reilly can give more detail on that. I can provide the exact date, if required, later.

I have taken a real and personal interest in the issue of the slaughtering of horses. Since I have come into this Department, the Government has done more for the horse sector, in terms of animal welfare, IDs, the passport system and microchipping, than we have seen done for a long time. We have changed, enforced and improved the regulations. There was evidence in the past that horse passports could be purchased far too easily and they were advertised for sale in a way that suggested something was not right. We have seven certified bodies in Ireland which can issue horse passports. We removed one of the certified bodies, the Irish Cob Society, last October, because we were not happy there was proper governance there. Until now, we had a permanent meat inspection presence from the Department in the factories we certified, but none of those is still in operation. The only two certified equine slaughter houses remaining have, until recently, been supervised under the responsibility of local authorities. However, I have changed that and we are now taking responsibility for those into the Department.

I have heard it said, particularly by the head of the Ulster Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, that large numbers of horses were being exported out of Ireland, presumably for slaughter.

I subsequently asked the special investigation unit to meet him and to go through any evidence he has on which we can follow up by investigating any wrongdoing, any smuggling of horses or anything else inappropriate that may be going on.

It is important to understand that a number of unwelcome issues arise during times of recession. An example of that is the dramatic increase in the number of horses being slaughtered in Ireland in recent years. There has been a reduction in the number of horse owners who can afford to continue to keep their animals. There has been a steady increase in the number of Irish horses being slaughtered. We have the data to show that when horses are slaughtered here for human consumption, all of that meat is exported. A horse is not allowed into the human food chain unless it has a passport and is microchipped and identified. It must be identified within six months of birth, or within the year of birth. We are enforcing those rules now. I am not saying everything was perfect in the past.

If anyone has evidence to suggest that something continues to be seriously wrong with regard to the slaughtering of horses, I need to hear about it and see it. I cannot act on hearsay. We need to be careful in what we say and write and ensure it can be backed up with evidence. One will not get an agriculture Minister who is stronger on animal welfare issues than I am. I know that horse welfare, in particular, is a sensitive topic for many people. We are following up on the accusations that have been made. The Sunday Timeshas published a number of articles on this issue. We have provided the journalist concerned with a great deal of information on what we have been doing in this area. The list is longer than the list I have just outlined. It is important to say that in many ways this issue is separate from the issue we are investigating here. There is not yet any evidence to suggest that any product supplied to Silvercrest or Rangeland by an Irish factory, boning hall or processing facility has tested positive for equine DNA.

Of course there could have been label-tampering in this instance. That is part of the investigation. We will work with the Polish authorities on that. If that is the case, we will have to uncover it and get to the bottom of exactly what is happening. It is important to say there is a great deal of evidence to show that product was ordered, paid for and delivered from Poland. If the product was tampered with, we will get to the bottom of that in time. I think I have answered most of Senator O'Keeffe's questions.