Kathryn Reilly (Sinn Fein)

I thank all Senators for facilitating me in contributing to this debate. I welcome the Minister of State to the House. The legislative proposals in the European Parliament this week mean we need a debate on food labelling at another stage. It is important to have a debate on food labelling when experts from across Europe are gathering in Dublin for the Society for Applied Microbiology conference. We all take for granted that the food we eat is safe and we trust that the systems will protect us from disease. However, recent scares from BSE, pork dioxins and the E. coli outbreak tell us that we must remain vigilant. These diseases have a health and economic impact. Prompt detection and identifying the sources is imperative if public health interventions are to be effective. This is not a sensationalist scare story but a real issue and it has an impact on our communities and our economy.

Senator Mary White outlined the drastic and devastating effect of the E. coli outbreak in Europe. It has killed 51 people so far, with 49 deaths in Germany, one in the US and one in Sweden. More than 4,000 people in Germany have fallen sick since the outbreak, including 851 people with serious complications that could lead to kidney failure. The same bacteria has been responsible for smaller outbreaks in France. It was initially blamed on cucumbers, tomatoes, lettuce and beansprouts. The source has finally been identified as Egyptian fenugreek seeds. The occurrence of a number of high-profile outbreaks of serious illness has focused more attention on this important issue. In respect of the socio-economic impact of foodborne illnesses, the costs to be calculated include treatment costs, product recall costs and, for the food industry, the effect of the loss of public confidence in businesses in the food and tourism industries and disruption to hospital services. From the product recall point of view, we must only look at the pork dioxin scare and the cost of this to the Irish economy, estimated at over €180 million.

Senator Comiskey referred to an all-Ireland approach, on which I want to focus. safefood, the food safety promotion board, has a statutory function to develop a strategy for the effective delivery of a specialised enteric laboratory service for the island of Ireland. safefood was established in 1999 under the terms of the Good Friday Agreement. The North-South Ministerial Council gave it a role of conducting a cost benefit analysis of different ways of meeting Ireland's need for an enteric reference laboratory service. This would provide definitive identification of the cause of enteric illnesses. It is essential for outbreak recognition and the identification of emerging threats. Currently, much testing relating to food safety in Ireland, north and south of the Border, is conducted by the laboratory of enteric pathogens in Colindale, London. This is an internationally renowned centre of excellence. However, if there was force majeure in the jurisdiction of England, Scotland or Wales, it could result in a massive disruption to the service to the island of Ireland. Should a major foodborne disease break out across Britain and Ireland, Ireland will fall to the bottom of the list in terms of testing. Current turnaround times for samples submitted to Britain from the Republic of Ireland are longer than desirable, for the North they remain just about acceptable. However, in a time of crisis this will not be sustainable. This matter was agreed previously through the North-South Ministerial Council and would deliver substantial benefits to both jurisdictions. For that reason, I ask the Minister of State and his colleagues in the Departments of health, both North and South, if he will facilitate the costing report for an islandwide enteric reference centre on the island. Such a report would cost only €40,000 and provision for it has been made already in the safefood budget. All that is required from the Government is to expedite this process for the agreement of both Departments. This service for the island of Ireland would enhance public health protection by ensuring the rapid identification of the causes of foodborne disease, facilitating traceback to the sources of infection and allowing the sharing of comprehensive data on these organisms. It would mean that should a food scare break out in this country we would not have the Cluedo theatrics we saw with the E. coli scare in Europe, concerning the source of the outbreak.

I reiterate what I stated in this House, including last week, namely, we should not have to wait for a food crisis to discuss these important issues. The benefits of acting would be enormous. We would see the centralisation of expertise which would help the development of a high quality reference service and, as a dedicated research centre with the critical mass of scientists, a laboratory could rapidly establish a culture of excellence and professionalism and give staff improved career development opportunities. This is worth pursuing and I ask the Minister of State to consider it in a serious way within his Department and the Department of Health. I ask him to assure us this issue will be expedited and confirm when a report will be commissioned and concluded.