Mary Wallace (Meath, Fianna Fail)

We are not aware of the incident to which the Deputy referred. If he has such information, we would be pleased if he would notify us immediately of same. Our advice and knowledge is that there is sale element involved in this process because it is a cost to the industry. The industry has to pay for the proper disposal of the materials, chiefly through incineration in Germany and other member states. It is a cost to the industry. There is no profit from the disposal of the materials and there is no sale element of which we are aware. If the Deputy has any other evidence, he might notify us of it.

Our information is that there were the nine incidents of which I advised him. We believe the monitoring system is effective due to the fact that nine incidents were detected in this manner. We are clear about what specifically occurred in each case. In two of nine incidents the items were simply put in the wrong bin and that was immediately identified by the inspector. In some cases the plant was closed temporarily or the slaughtering ceased while the whole line was checked to make sure that everything was perfected. We are all the time perfecting a dedicated and detailed system and it is our information that the process is crystal clear. If the Deputy wishes he may bring to our attention the example he identified of which we are not aware.

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