Brendan Smith (Cavan-Monaghan, Fianna Fail)

I reject the Deputy's final comments. I fully appreciate the serious difficulties arising from the contamination incident caused to individual pig producers, the processing industry and everybody involved in the pork trade.

From day one the Department and Government worked extremely hard to bring a conclusion to that incident as rapidly as possible. This House agreed a Supplementary Estimate prior to Christmas to enable the issuing of interim payments, which were crucial to stimulate movement in the system again. Such payments needed to trickle down to the individual pig producer who was waiting for payment from the processing facilities.

In regard to labelling, the Department of Health and Children, on behalf of the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, put forward specific proposals to the European Commission on labelling for pigmeat, poultrymeat and sheepmeat on a number of occasions.

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