Susan O'Keeffe (Labour) | Oireachtas source

I believe Senator Ó Clochartaigh is more right than he knows when he suggests much work has gone on behind the scenes in respect of CEDRA. Several people have spoken to me about the work they are doing in this regard and it would be a welcome debate, because they have been working. The Leader might be able to find an opportunity to include a debate on rural development.

I wish to raise the issue of the meat found by the Polish inspectors last year at the time of the horsemeat scandal. It is impossible to think otherwise but that this report is highly disturbing. It is not sufficient for anyone to suggest the Poles would say that anyway or that they came to Ireland to inspect our plants merely in order to state it had nothing to do with Poland. On coming here, they found a variety of highly disturbing things, not least of which were the boxes some people will have seen in the newspapers. Those photographs show clearly meat of mixed origin, some of which was very old and very rotten. It appears in this case that it was the horsemeat that was added to this old meat to disguise the latter. In fact, this was not horsemeat mixed with beef but was old, disgusting rotten meat that had horsemeat added to it to make a better. This appears to be what happened. That therefore is what is called in the trade category three animal by-product meat, which should not be used for human consumption and the clear suggestion is that this possibly was there to be used for consumption by humans.

It is not enough to say we are satisfied it was not going to be used for human consumption if there were 22 pallets of it, which is quite a lot. They are large boxes of frozen meat. Like myself, the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine has only one thing at heart which is to protect the Irish beef industry, to ensure its integrity and to offer assurance to farmers that their efforts and hard work are being rewarded with an industry that is properly policed.

We need to know the answer to a couple of questions. When the Polish inspectors came to Ireland last year, they would not have been allowed into Irish plants without being accompanied by people from the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine or the Food Safety Authority of Ireland. I am sure those people who accompanied the Polish inspectors have a report to make, took photographs and have something to say about what happened.

It is not enough to say we have no jurisdiction over rotten meat once it arrives in Ireland. If a box of meat was filled with rats, we would be very quick to say this is not appropriate and is not suitable. We would deem it inappropriate and would have something to say about it. Clearly, we ought to have something to say about this meat. It is clear the labels were false, were photocopied or were old ones which were reused. This impinges on the business here and I would very much appreciate it if the Minister came to the House to explain exactly what happened when the Polish inspectors found these boxes of meat which clearly were not suitable for human consumption.