Martin Ferris (Kerry North-West Limerick, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

As a legislator, elected representative and a representative of rural communities who are very dependent on farm produce and on having a good image of the food processing industry, that company has done this and I hope if there was any fraudulent behaviour involved the full rigours of the law will be applied to deal with what has happened.

I want to raise the question of what initiated the initial Department tests. How much did the Department know of the possible contamination that was going on and what warned it of the need to be extra vigilant? Did it or the Food Safety Authority of Ireland know that QK Meats had conducted its own tests? The Minister has already answered that question: he said they were not aware of it until February this year. Was any explanation given to the Minister or the Food Safety Authority of Ireland as to why QK Meats did not come forward and make the Department and the Food Safety Authority of Ireland aware of this? I pose those questions not to question the efficiency of any of the official bodies but to try to find out what level of knowledge existed among people responsible for monitoring the food industry here.

In regard to the origin of the contaminated product, and without prejudicing the ongoing investigation, can the Minister inform the House whether we are dealing with one or multiple sources of horsemeat from Poland? Can he also state whether the Polish company from which the contaminated product was bought by QK Meats was informed of the reasons the product was returned to it? Were the Polish authorities made aware of the reason either by the Polish company of by Department when it became aware of it?

This crisis has also highlighted the practices of the food companies themselves. Surely there must be an obligation on any company which discovers contamination of their food product to inform the relevant authorities. If not, then there is the onus for that to be addressed as a matter of urgency as part of ensuring that a similar situation does not occur in future.

We also need to be assured that no processors here knowingly include contaminated ingredients in their products. That brings me back to QK Meats. It had received a consignment that was contaminated and it had also received other consignments that were contaminated, yet it continued to deal with the same company. Apparently, the motivation was that it was able to purchase the product for €400 a tonne cheaper. It all came down to greed and profit: it was not about food safety, the interests of the consumer or a concern for the good name of the Irish food processing industry.

While it is difficult to track down such people always, they need to be dealt with vigorously when caught. More than that, legislation needs to be introduced to ensure that regulations on content, testing and reporting make it more difficult for cowboy operators to break the rules. During my conservation with the Minister yesterday when he was giving us a briefing on this, he said he was contemplating doing that. We need legislation to be brought forward to ensure there is an obligation on any companies carrying out testing to notify the Department and the Food Safety Authority of Ireland immediately if they discover any irregularities in the ingredients, and failure to do so must have a consequence. I would like the Minister to deal with that point.

Earlier this morning I moved a Bill to amend the Food Safety Authority of Ireland Act in order to tighten up in this whole area. It is a short Bill which initially seeks to address traceability and labelling according to country of origin as well as ingredients. A Bill of that nature was never so important and we will move it forward at the first opportunity.

There are a number of questions to be answered. We will have to study the report in detail. I only had the opportunity to have one glance at it. I understand the Minister will come before the committee at a later date when we will have a far more thorough examination of it. Since this issue became public, Sinn Féin, as a party, Deputy Caoimhghín Ó Caoimhghín and I must be complimentary to the Minister and his staff for facilitating a number of meetings in regard to the ongoing crisis. That is the way business should be done in this House. I compliment the Minister on this.

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