Bernard Durkan (Kildare North, Fine Gael)
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Question 143: To ask the Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Food if she has satisfied herself that all food and food products sold here are accurately labelled to reflect the country of origin; if her attention has been drawn to the breaches in the labelling regime; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [30451/07]

Mary Coughlan (Donegal South West, Fianna Fail)
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The Minister for Health & Children has overall responsibility for the general food labelling legislation. Responsibility for enforcement of labelling legislation rests with the Food Safety Authority of Ireland (FSAI) through its service contracts with my Department, the Sea Fisheries Protection Authority, the Health Services Executive, the Local Authorities and the National Consumer Agency. Breaches of food labelling legislation should be reported to the FSAI.

EU beef labelling legislation requiring country of origin labelling of beef has been in place since September 2000. As this legislation did not cover beef sold by the catering trade I collaborated with the Minister for Health & Children to have national legislation enacted to require that all beef sold or served in the retail or catering sector is now required to carry an indication of the country of origin. This legislation is enforced by the FSAI.

Regarding the labelling of poultry meat, there are EU Regulations which provide for the labelling of unprocessed poultry meat at retail level. The Regulations require such poultry meat to be labelled with the information regarding class, price, condition, registered number of slaughterhouse or cutting plant and, where imported from a Third Country, an indication of country of origin.

In relation to other meats I have signalled my intention to have legislation brought forward to require the country of origin to be shown on poultry meat, pigmeat and sheepmeat sold in the retail and catering sectors. A draft of such regulations was prepared by my Department and is currently being finalised by the Department of Health & Children. A public consultation process has taken place. Following consideration of any views received it will be necessary to submit the draft regulations to the European Commission for approval.

There is also the issue where a primary product can enter Ireland and processed in some way thereby allowing it to be branded as an Irish product is known as "substantial transformation". This terminology originates in WTO, Codex and EU legislation governing the EU Customs Code and therefore can only be amended at EU level. I have been concerned that this arrangement could, in certain circumstances, be used to mislead the consumers as to the origin of the raw materials used in certain products. I am not satisfied with the current legal position and have raised my concerns at EU Council level.

The EU Commission is currently reviewing the whole area of food labelling and in that context my Department contributed to Ireland's submission which was co-ordinated by the Department of Health & Children. Within this submission Ireland again raised the matter of the unsatisfactory nature of the concept of substantial transformation and the possibility of it being used to disguise the origin of products from the public. I believe that the concept of substantial transformation needs to be more clearly defined and I will continue to urge the Commission to address this problem. In that same submission we also explained why we felt that origin labelling should be compulsory for all meat. As well as direct contact with the Commission on this I have also raised this matter in the Agriculture Council and I will continue to press for progress as I believe consumers are entitled to full information on the origin of food products.