Joe O'Toole (Independent)

It is called Melton Mowbray, which is famous the world over for pork pies. Melton Mowbray pork pies are like Dover sole or Dublin Bay prawns. It is a brand. However, pork pies were being made and sold by Tesco and by all the big distributors as Melton Mowbray pork pies, even though they never saw Melton Mowbray. The people of this small town got together and took a case to Europe. They made the case that the pie was special because it was made without a frame — it stood on its own two feet, if Senators know what I mean — and contained various ingredients. They won the case in Europe and now the Melton Mowbray name can be used only by agreement with them. The Minister of State can check it out.

This weekend I was in a restaurant and I had a bottle of Italian wine. On the label, rather than the appellation d'origine contrôlée, as one gets in France, or the denominazione di origine controllata, as is used in Italy, there was a new classification. I wrote it down, and I am sorry I did not bring it with me as I had forgotten we were to have this debate today. It was labelled as a wine typical of a particular region. I have been following developments in Italy over the last number of years, and this is a new idea which is quite different from other classifications. Why do I say that? I mentioned Dover sole and Dublin Bay prawns a while ago, and I might add Limerick ham to that. They are three examples of brands that have been lost to a particular area. Limerick ham has nothing to do with Limerick, Dublin Bay prawns have nothing whatever to do with Dublin Bay any more, and Dover sole has now been redefined as any sole more than 16 oz. in weight. We should try to get back Limerick ham and Dublin Bay prawns, along with foods such as drisheen and other black puddings from various areas of Ireland, the Kerry mutton pie, and queenie scallops, which I have never seen anywhere except around the Irish Sea. These are foods we should be protecting, but it is not happening.

Tá sé seo ráite agam cúpla uair cheana agus an Aire Stáit i láthair. Nuair a théann duine isteach in ollmhargadh sa bhFrainc, mar shampla, chun píosa sicín a cheannach, níl dabht ar bith ann cé acu dos na sicíní a thagann ón bhFrainc. What will be on it is Elevée en France, to make sure one has no doubt about its having been raised in France, whatever else might have happened to it. In case one cannot read, there is a big red cockerel on it, to make absolutely sure. I have watched housewives and others buying there. They know the difference and they buy those products.

This week — I ask the Minister of State to contradict me if I am wrong, but I am almost certain of this — country-of-origin labelling legislation came into operation in the USA. It was introduced on Tuesday of this week or last week. Why was this done? To hear the argument, one could have been listening to an Irish farmer or to somebody from the IFA. The argument is that a particular food could have been raised in South America, but somebody washes it in the USA and it is then branded as having come from the USA. One of the big closures last month, after Waterford Crystal and Dell, was a turkey factory in Monaghan. This was painted as another victim of the recession. However, it was no victim of the recession but a victim of the lack of country-of-origin labelling. It was put to the sword by cheaper imported meat. This is exactly the problem with Brazilian meat. The difficulty is that these pieces of turkey or other meat are coming from countries where food safety legislation does not match our own, water quality is not up to our standards, labour standards are unacceptable from the point of view of Irish agreements, pesticides are not controlled, and growth promoters are still being used. We should be doing something about this. If the Minister of State did nothing else, he should foster a sense of pride in our own food. We should be able to say that something came from Listowel or Balbriggan or Castlebar or anywhere else and it is ours. People locally should get together to do that.

I spoke to a butcher in the midlands last year about this — in the Cathaoirleach's constituency, although not in his town. His butcher's shop was adjoining a well-known hotel. I asked him whether he got much business from the hotel. I asked the question casually, but he was on his guard because he recognised me and he was wondering whether I was setting him up to send in the taxman. It turned out he was doing fine business with the hotel, because he had the best meat. However, it then transpired that the food officers, probably from the Minister of State's Department, discovered he was supplying the hotel and clamped down. Why? It was very simple and logical, but totally daft. He was selling it to the hotel, and the hotel was selling it on to you and me when we came in as customers, which made him a wholesaler. Thus, he no longer had to comply with the regulations pertaining to retail sales — which I agree with — but with the regulations for wholesalers. This point was raised by Senator O'Sullivan earlier. He had to comply with the regulations applying to big wholesalers, even though all he was doing was supplying the hotel next door.

I asked the same man a question about abattoirs. He has an abattoir of his own because his brother is a butcher somewhere else. He tried to get the four or five butchers in the town to agree to build an abattoir, and he got the support of two local vets. However, they could not get agreement as they did not trust each other. That has probably already happened in Kerry, but it happens everywhere apparently. Consequently, they are still bringing the products into town.

I could go on at length about this. I do not think it should happen. I wrote to the Department a year ago, and I am not sure whether the position has changed. The question of whether a person is a wholesaler or a retailer is determined by us, not by Europe. It is determined on the basis of the amount sold in the course of a month or a year. Our threshold is so low that my man supplying the hotel immediately qualified as a wholesaler. Up in Senator O'Brien's constituency, along the Border, hotels can be supplied not by the butcher next door, who would have the same problem, but by a butcher over the Border, because he is not considered a wholesaler under UK legislation, which has a higher threshold.

I can see the Cathaoirleach getting edgy and looking down at me.