Bernard Durkan (Kildare North, Fine Gael)
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Question 414: To ask the Minister for Agriculture and Food if she is satisfied that adequate food labelling exists to identify the origins of all meat or meat products available here; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [26777/05]

Mary Coughlan (Donegal South West, Fianna Fail)
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There is some legislation governing the labelling of meat and meat products. The general labelling regulations covering, among other points, all food sold in Ireland require that the information be given clearly, accurately and in a language understood by the consumer. This legislation comes within the remit of the Department of Health and Children. My Department is responsible for policy in respect of legislation on the labelling of specific products including beef and other meats. The labelling of beef is governed by EU regulations that were introduced in 2000. These compulsory labelling regulations require all operators and organisations marketing beef within the community to provide the information on the label, namely, a reference code to enable the beef to be traced back to the animal or group of animals from which it was derived, the approval number of the slaughterhouse and the country in which it is located, the approval number of the de-boning hall and the country in which it is located and an indication of the origin of the animal from which the beef was derived to include the country in which it was born and reared.

These requirements apply to all beef sold at retail level regardless of whether that beef was produced within the Community or in a third country. Where beef is imported into the Community from a third country and all the above details are not available, that beef must, at a minimum, be labelled as "Origin: non-EC" along with an indication of the third country in which slaughter took place. For the purpose of these regulations, marketing means all aspects of beef production and marketing to retail level, including up to the point of delivery into hotels, restaurants and catering establishments.

My priority now in this area is to extend the existing beef labelling laws to require information on the country of origin of beef to be provided to all consumers in the restaurant and catering sectors. I put specific proposals to Government at the end of June for a legislative framework to facilitate this by way of an amendment to the Health Act 1947. This will be introduced under the Irish Medicines Board (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill 2005, which is before the Oireachtas this session. The appropriate regulations are being worked on concurrently and it is my intention to have these cleared at EU level as soon as possible. When the Act is amended and the regulations made, country of origin information will be available to consumers in respect of all beef served in restaurants, hotels and the whole catering sector in Ireland on a mandatory basis.

In the meantime and following discussions with my Department, the various representative bodies, including the Irish Hotels Federation, the Restaurants Association of Ireland and both of the vintners groups, have all agreed to recommend to their members the introduction on a voluntary basis of a mechanism for providing consumers in their premises with information on the country of origin of the beef served there in advance of the mandatory legal requirement. This agreement was finalised last week and these organisations are currently at various stages in that process. I expect the voluntary system will be in place in the very near future.

Beef has the most developed system of labelling in the EU. However, there are also EU regulations on poultrymeat that provide for the labelling of unprocessed poultrymeat. The regulations require such poultrymeat to be labelled at retail level with the information regarding class, price per kilogram, condition, registered number of slaughterhouse or cutting plant and, where imported from a third country, an indication of country of origin. My next step in meat labelling is to extend the labelling requirements to have similar provisions in law for poultrymeat, pigmeat and lamb as we will have for beef. This is not a straightforward matter and will involve considerable complexities. EU approval will also be required and there is no precedent so far for individual member states being allowed to extend meat labelling requirements internally beyond providing information that is already required in EU laws.

Arising from the implementation of the recommendations of the food labelling group, responsibility for the enforcement of all food labelling legislation is now centralised with the Food Safety Authority of Ireland, FSAI. On the food labelling issue in general, I must emphasise that my primary aim is to protect consumer interest and to ensure that the consumer is properly informed. Ireland is a major exporter of food and food products and indeed there are also considerable imports. Therefore, it is imperative that the same standards are applied to the labelling of foods in every sector and that there is a level playing field for the food industry at all levels. In this context, my Department has pursued assiduously the implementation in as full a manner as possible of the recommendations of the food labelling group. At a meeting of the Council of Agriculture Ministers on 28 February this year, I raised again the issue of labelling of foodstuffs and I, along with a number of member states, asked the Commission to further examine how best food labelling should be handled at EU level in order to best protect the interests of the consumer.