Written answers
Wednesday, 4 February 2009
Department of Health and Children
Food Safety
9:00 pm
Andrew Doyle (Wicklow, Fine Gael)
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Question 175: To ask the Minister for Health and Children the reason for the delay in replying to Parliamentary Question No. 205 of 25 November 2008. [3643/09]
Mary Wallace (Meath East, Fianna Fail)
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Parliamentary Question No. 205 of 25 November 2008 was answered in full. However, I understand that the Deputy is referring to Parliamentary Question No. 144 of 10 December 2008 which asked about "the number of bottled water plants that have been inspected in 2007 and 2008 out of the total number, by category; the number of infringements that were found; the nature of the infringements; and the way the public were informed on foot of the infringements".
The reason for the delay in replying to this question was that the information had to be collated by the Food Safety Authority of Ireland in conjunction with the Health Service Executive. This information has now been made available to me and is set out in the following table.
| Total number of bottled water plants in the country | Number producing Natural Mineral Water | Number producing Spring Water | Number producing Other Water |
| 25* | 3 | 9 | 16 |
| There was a total of 22 inspections in 2007 resulting in 12 infringements. | |||
| There was a total of 24 inspections in 2008 resulting in 9 infringements. | |||
| The types of infringement reported ranged from labelling, structural hygiene, traceability procedures and microbiological criteria. The nature of the infringements in most cases did not warrant the need to notify the public. There was however, one occasion when this course of action was required and this was on 16 July 2008 when a product recall of Pure Spring Natural Still Water was necessary as some batches did not comply with microbiological criteria for bottled waters. | |||
| *The reason the figures in this heading do not agree is because some plants produce more than one type of water. |
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