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

I will answer any questions the Deputy has on this issue. If he wants to ask me those questions privately, I will brief him privately. If he wants to ask me those questions on the record, we will take them in the House. If he wants to ask me those questions in committee, we will do it there. We have nothing to hide. This industry must be transparent. That is the reason for the ongoing investigation, which started as a specific investigation of one company. When we received the test result from the FSAI on 15 January, we started the investigation that morning on Silvercrest. What started as a specific problem with a burger in a specific company, which we were determined to get to the bottom of, has now blown up into a Europe-wide problem.

Because there is political involvement by a Minister, which is needed, Ireland took the lead in setting up a meeting initially with the Commissioner and the seven or eight states that were involved at the time, although many more states have become involved since. We got an initial response from the Commissioner on the introduction of an EU-wide DNA testing programme, initially for a month but with a later extension of two months, and of a phenylbutazone testing programme within equine abattoirs across the European Union to ensure we can establish the extent of the problem at a European level. In fact, this goes beyond the European Union, as we have seen now, with big multinationals such as Nestlé involved.

The point I am making is that the Deputy's calls for an independent inquiry do not make sense on a number of levels. First, this is already an independent inquiry.

See this speech in context