Ned O'Sullivan (Fianna Fail)

Without repeating what everybody else has said, this is a very important and worrying issue for the country in terms of the overall economy and particularly for pig producers, processors, factory workers and consumers. I commend Senator O'Reilly on a very measured contribution and the Opposition, in the main, has been responsible in this debate, which is very welcome. The matter is too important to play politics with it. I am not sure I would agree with the Senator that there has been a systems failure. No system is perfect anywhere in the world and the human condition is fraught with problems and failures. The matter was handled well and I would not call it a failure but a field test of a system. The backup and safeguards were present. I commend the Government and the Minister, in particular, as well as the State agencies concerned, on the prompt manner in which they dealt with the crisis. They had a tough call to make but made it, for which they must be respected. Initially, my view was that the image of Ireland as a producer of clean, high quality foods would be damaged. However, given the manner in which the matter was handled by the Government and its agencies, our reputation has been enhanced because one can see how serious we are about protecting the image of our food. One also sees that we are prepared to announce a total recall of a product. One must compare this with what happened in Belgium in 1999 when the Belgian Government and its agencies fiddled around with the problem encountered in that country. Information was doled out sparingly and the action taken was not as clear-cut or decisive as that taken here. That puts the matter into proper perspective. It is interesting to note that the French Minister for agriculture has commended the Government on its handling of the matter. In addition, the European Commission is clearly satisfied because it issued a welcome statement within the past hour.

I thank the chief veterinary officer for his good media presentations, with the director of the Food Safety Authority, which reassured the public. I agree with previous speakers that we must now go on a PR offensive to rectify the damage caused. I call on the media, in particular our national broadcaster, RTE, to help us out in dealing with the crisis and to rectify the damage done by the less than balanced coverage on other television channels. There is an opportunity for us to do so. In the past I commended the work of Bord Bia but it has much to do before Christmas. I have no doubt that it will be able for the job.

I was disappointed to learn that organic pigmeat was also being included in the ban. It is a big disappointment for the Minister of State who has done such tremendous work in promoting organic food. I can understand the reason — to prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that all possible dangerous products had been recalled. However, it still presents the organic food sector with an opportunity to step up to the mark and enjoy an even greater profile. The sector has grown under the Minister of State's supervision in recent times and there is still a major opportunity with the approach of the Christmas market. People will now be looking far more closely at all of their food products; therefore, the message should be that organic food is of high quality. Although there was no problem with it, it was recalled to be safer than safe.

One worrying aspect concerns the labelling of so-called Irish food products. Products are marketed here as being Irish when, in fact, they are not but sourced abroad. If my information is correct, one of our business people is having it both ways in this respect. They have been happily importing pork before slicing and vacuum packing it here to market it as an Irish product. I am told that they are busy telling people that it is not an Irish product and is quite safe to eat because it is sourced abroad. Talk about having an each-way bet.

Obviously, we have to get processing back on stream again and it should happen before the end of this week. I welcome the Minister of State's intended announcement this evening on the organic sector. I support his efforts to introduce our own testing process shortly.