Éamon Ó Cuív (Galway West, Fianna Fail)
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To ask the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine if his Department has a veterinary inspectorate presence in each meat processing plant, including those plants cited in relation to the recent burger scandal; if he will publish their reports; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [10767/13]

Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael)
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My Department maintains a permanent presence in its approved slaughter plants. Other Department approved meat plants are visited regularly. The frequency of the official controls in plants other than slaughter plants, which focus primarily on food safety requirements, is determined by a risk assessment, as required under EU legislation, which is conducted for each plant. The outcomes of such official controls are not published but are conveyed as appropriate to the food business operators concerned. Appropriate enforcement action is taken where necessary. EU official control legislation requires that confidential business information is treated confidentially unless necessary for the protection of public health. Official controls are monitored independently by the EU Food and Veterinary Office and by the FSAI under service contract.

Smaller meat processors are approved and supervised by local authorities operating under service contract arrangement with the FSAI. The same legislation applies to both types of meat processor; the difference is one of scale and the larger plants are more focussed on the export market. My Department does not have a direct role in such plants, but local authorities and the FSAI liaise with the Department in relation to the official controls and standards applying, to ensure that they are equivalent to those in the larger plants supervised by the Department.

The onus of compliance with EU food safety regulations, including traceability requirements, rests in the first instance with food business operators. Food business operators in Ireland are responsible inter alia for carrying out checks to ensure that their ingredients come from approved plants. In meat plants that operate under the supervision of the Department, official controls are conducted on these checks to verify their effectiveness. An annual audit of imported products is carried out in each Department approved meat plant. The audit includes physical identity, labelling and documentary checks. This includes product originating both in EU Member States and third countries. Labelling and documentary checks also form part of the routine checks conducted by Department officials.

Under the Department’s National Residue Programme, and including tests on bovine samples carried out by processors, up to 30,000 samples taken at farm and factory level and covering a wide range of food stuffs are tested annually. These tests relate to microbiological and chemical standards, their primary focus being on food safety. These are fully in accordance with EU testing requirements. In addition the Product Official Sampling and Testing (POST) programme is a microbiological testing programme on samples taken from Department approved ready-to-eat food, meat product, minced meat and meat preparation plants i.e. added value plants. This is part of the official verification of food safety controls in the plants concerned as provided for in Regulations (EC) 852/2004, 854/2004 and 2073/2005. A total of 1,600 samples are taken annually and the sampling and testing is risk based.

While compliance with existing food safety and food hygiene requirements was not an issue in relation to the mislabelling of meat products uncovered by the recent FSAI survey, it is clear however that the focus of checks henceforth will also need to include food authenticity. The recently agreed EU wide programme of DNA testing will provide the basis for consideration of future action in this respect.

In the meantime, in the light of recent developments, officials from my Department and the FSAI met with the meat processing sector on 14th February to agree a national protocol for DNA testing of meat to be applied at retail, catering and processing level in Ireland. This testing will provide further reassurance to Irish consumers and consumers of Irish food abroad about the authenticity of ingredients in our meat based products.