Éamon Ó Cuív (Galway West, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I know he did, but it is important. I accept that the Minister gave us a briefing yesterday, but to give a detailed response from the Opposition, we need an opportunity to read the full report before making our contribution.

It is easy to make the big speech to solve the problems of the world, but the Minister knows that in government, solving problems requires many hours of painstaking, patient work. Issues must be considered and teased out systematically and then resolved. The Houses of the Oireachtas have a role to play in this work. I ask the Minister to agree that there should be ongoing detailed debate at the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine on the issue. Is the Minister willing to provide to members in tabular form a list of the issues as they arise from his investigations? Will he give us a list of the actions on each issue he has identified and identify whether a domestic administrative decision, regulation or legislation is required or if a European directive or regulation is necessary? This painstaking, slow and systematic approach is required if we are serious about sorting out this and equivalent problems.

There are two ends to the problem, to which I will allude. We must know now what measures have been identified and we must examine them. We must know what defects have been found in the systems. The Minister has mentioned regular DNA testing. We must know what the Minister proposes to do about the defects and we must debate his proposals to see whether they are sufficient. We must also know how the Minister is going to act and by means of what instrument, be it administrative, legislative or regulatory. If we have that information, the next step is to estimate the time by which actions can be taken. I suspect that to solve this problem various issues will have to be addressed by legislation or European regulation. There is no way we can solve these problems overnight.

The difficulty with these issues is that they have a high profile and attract a great deal of media interest for a short while, but when the immediacy of the problem disappears, pressure dissipates. When the media no longer examine the matter on a daily basis, there is a temptation to slip and regress and to fail to take firm action. We all know that human beings respond to pressure or questioning. Given the number of the things on people's desks, there is a tendency to put aside those matters that are not being pressed systematically. We must use the Oireachtas committee to establish a process to check the Department's homework at least at six-monthly intervals, ensuring all of the actions outlined in the Minister's action plan have been taken. We must be provided with the plan in an accessible form so that we know exactly what will happen.

The initial issue that arose was the adulteration of meat products with horsemeat. I compliment the FSAI on its identification of this problem. I recognise that, for whatever reason, Ireland was the first country to query whether such adulteration was taking place. I am still curious about why the FSAI started to carry out checks, because it has never been explained. Were complaints made to the Department or the FSAI that this might be happening? Did it have intelligence? It seems strange that someone would start conducting DNA tests out of nowhere.

See this speech in context