Dáil debates

Wednesday, 27 February 2013

Topical Issue Debate

Horsemeat Investigation

2:45 pm

Photo of Éamon Ó CuívÉamon Ó Cuív (Galway West, Fianna Fail)
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Ba mhaith liom buíochas a ghlacadh leis an Aire as teacht isteach sa Teach leis an cheist seo a thógáil.

The controversy surrounding the discovery of horsemeat in food labelled as beef is extremely serious and has been allowed to rumble on. Last weekend there was a grave development when horsemeat labelled as beef for export was discovered. It was expected that this would not be noticed because the product in question was destined for the Czech Republic. I put it to the Minister that it is past time we got to the bottom of this entire controversy which appears to be getting wider and wider all the time. In order to do this, an investigation that would be totally independent of the Minister and his Department should take place. Let us be honest: an increasing number of issues require clarification.

At the outset of this crisis, the Minister appeared to provide clear and unequivocal statements to the effect that this issue had nothing to do with the slaughtering of horses or the processing of horsemeat in Ireland. Now we know that it does have something to do with these. It may not be relevant in terms of the production of specific products, but it does come into play in a general context and in terms of the sourcing of product across Europe, mislabelling, etc. It is time for the Minister and his Department to stand back and allow an independent investigation to get to the bottom of the matter.

There are many issues in respect of which clarification is required, of which the first is that on which I tried to obtain clarification from the Minister via parliamentary questions. Will he now indicate the complaints made to his Department about horsemeat entering the food chain? When were these complaints made? What controls were in place in this matter? What action was taken on foot of the complaints to which I refer? What emerged from the investigations which subsequently took place? It is important to discover whether the original DNA samples were taken on foot of suspicions during a previous investigation.

Those of us who understand why the Food Safety Authority of Ireland, FSAI, answers to the Minister for Health rather than the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine must ask why Deputy Simon Coveney has been the lead Minister in this matter. The FSAI answers to the Minister for Health for a very good reasons, namely, that there will not be what is termed "capture" in respect of investigations into issues relating to food quality and food safety. It is also important that there be an independent investigation into both the supervision of the importation of meat into the country and food labelling. There are many issues which must be investigated on an independent basis in order that we might discover what has gone wrong, to restore the credibility of the beef and processed food industries in this country and to ensure that whatever we put on the market is, literally, what is described on the package. This must be the case, regardless of whether it is horsemeat or processed food. Until an independent investigation is put in train, we will merely stumble from crisis to crisis.

Photo of Simon CoveneySimon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael)
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The Deputy will shortly obtain a written response to which he can refer. I agree with him in the context of the outcome he is seeking, namely, restoring credibility and confidence to an industry which has been damaged by what happened during the past six weeks.

That is the reason we are so focused on getting the answers the Deputy is looking for, and I believe we have the independence in the current inquiries to do that. That is the reason the Garda is involved, and it is independent. The Food Safety Authority of Ireland, FSAI, is also independent. The idea that we would stop the investigation that has been ongoing for six weeks, put some new so-called independent body in charge and start again is crazy thinking.

The Deputy asked why I have taken the lead in this. Like other Ministers in the European Union who are responsible for their food industries, I have taken on responsibility to show initiative and respond with policy changes at a domestic level, as well as to examine the use of DNA testing, which we have now done. We are working independently with the FSAI, which has put in place a new protocol with the food industry to place DNA testing on a more mainstream footing.

On the issue of equine identification and passports, we discussed this issue previously. In case there is any doubt that I have been providing answers on this issue, we spent more than four hours on questions at the committee, and the Deputy was not present for all of that time, although he was for a lot of the meeting.

2:55 pm

Photo of Éamon Ó CuívÉamon Ó Cuív (Galway West, Fianna Fail)
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I had business in the House. The Minister is aware of that.

Photo of Simon CoveneySimon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael)
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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.

Photo of Éamon Ó CuívÉamon Ó Cuív (Galway West, Fianna Fail)
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In the Department.

Photo of Simon CoveneySimon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael)
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We have a special investigations unit which is independent within my Department. It is working with the FSAI, which is also independent, and with the Garda, which the Deputy must accept is entirely independent.

I have to give political leadership, because not only do we need a thorough investigation of how this happened from an Irish perspective in order to contribute to the Europe-wide investigation now being led by Europol - which, again, was an initiative in which I was involved to try to establish what has happened at a European level and to ensure we can secure prosecutions - we also need a policy response as the investigation continues, to reassure consumers that we are taking actions and learning lessons from what happened. We are doing all of that, and Ireland is giving leadership at a European level, as has been acknowledged. We will continue to do so, because the food sector is more important to Ireland than it is to any other country in the European Union. In many ways it can be compared to the automobile industry in Germany. The food sector is hugely important to this State and I will protect the reputation of this industry, but I will leave no stone unturned and no reputation untarnished, if necessary, to get to the bottom of what happened and who was responsible for it.

Photo of Éamon Ó CuívÉamon Ó Cuív (Galway West, Fianna Fail)
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First, as the Minister is aware, I believe that nothing should be done that will in any way interfere with An Garda Síochána in carrying out its investigation. Second, the Minister eventually took up the matter in Europe. I had to do a fair bit of prodding to get him to do it but - fair play to him - he eventually responded and raised the issue in Europe.

Photo of Simon CoveneySimon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael)
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It was the Deputy's initiative, was it?

Photo of Éamon Ó CuívÉamon Ó Cuív (Galway West, Fianna Fail)
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As I pointed out to the Minister previously, the reason the FSAI answers to the Minister for Health is to ensure that agencies not connected with the Department investigate food safety issues. That is the reason it does not answer to the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine. It is a good, valid reason and one the Government agrees with, which is why it retained that structure.

Time and again I have asked questions that relate to the behaviour, control and supervision of the Department. The Minister said this started with one factory. When this came into the public domain, people were telling me immediately that this was a much wider issue and that an issue had arisen regarding control of the slaughter of horses in this country and what was happening to the horsemeat. I did not know whether it was true, but I knew it should have been investigated. We found out last weekend that there is a huge scandal regarding the processing of horsemeat within this State. Control of that rests with the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine, but the Minister is telling me the Department is independently investigating its own control and supervision of meat imports, the slaughter of horses and the packaging and the export of the product.

We need somebody who is independent of the agencies that are meant to be policing this area - that is, the FSAI and the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine - and of the system in general to investigate all of this and examine the controls and supervision that existed and whether there was a response to complaints. The Minister did not answer the question about the number of complaints submitted about the slaughter of horses, when they were received, what he did about it, and all the other relevant details. Despite his attempt to say it is not relevant to the issue, last weekend this became central to it.

Photo of Simon CoveneySimon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael)
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Deputy Ó Cuív keeps saying I have not answered certain questions. I have answered that question. I have produced an information note for anybody who wants it - I will send it to the Deputy this evening - on what we have done in the past 12 months regarding equine identification, passports, linking those passports with microchips, increased supervision within equine slaughtering facilities, and taking over responsibility from local authorities in certain equine slaughtering facilities in Ireland, of which there are not that many left. We have done a lot in that area, and I will happily give the Deputy the detail on that.

Regarding the independence of the inquiry, my Department is involved in working under contract for the FSAI to ensure this country has an effective food safety system, and it is very effective. My Department takes 30,000 samples a year of meat from various places and tests them, from a food safety point of view, for everything from E. coli to chemical content, as well as all of the other standard food safety tests. We work with the FSAI to reassure people that the food they are eating is safe. What we had not done in the past and what the FSAI has done only to a limited extent - no other country has been doing this - was to use DNA testing to check that food is what it says it is, and it is because of that testing in Ireland that we uncovered this issue, which has subsequently become a huge issue across Europe and, arguably, globally.

I reject the idea that we are somehow compromised by examining and improving the way in which our food safety systems work, the testing mechanisms we use and the way we use them. I accept that we need to be scrutinised by Deputies such as Deputy Ó Cuív, and we are being scrutinised.

I refer to the idea that we are not the appropriate authority to establish if there are problem areas and to try to respond and put new systems in place, working with the sector because the primary responsibility lies with food service operators in regard to food safety. It is up to us to put the checks in place to ensure we hold them to account. We do that probably better than any other country in the European Union. For example, if one looks at the tests we do and the inspections we make in the food processing sector, we do double the number of tests the European Union requires us to do in terms of inspections. We will continue to increase the number, if necessary. We are now in the process of mainstreaming DNA testing in that system and we will be the first country in the European Union to do so.

I strongly defend how we have responded to this. It has continued to grow and new scandals have broken as part of the overall scandal. That has been frustrating for all of us but we will continue to try to get to the bottom of what has happened and build a complete picture in terms of Ireland's role in this, and we are not too far away from doing that. I look forward to being able to outline the detail of that when it is done.