Éamon Ó Cuív (Galway West, Fianna Fail)
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19. To ask the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine if he intends asking the Council of Agriculture Ministers to set up a European wide investigation into the operation of beef processing plants in order to ensure that no cartels are in operation, that free trade and competition is operating properly across the Union and that the practices in all plants from a business, competition, labelling and health safety point of view comply fully with both EU and national laws and regulations; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [48241/13]

Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael)
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Under Articles 101 to 109 of the Treaty for the Functioning of the EU, the European Commission, together with national competition authorities, are responsible for the enforcement of EU competition rules. Within the Commission, primary responsibility for direct enforcement rests with the Directorate-General (DG) for Competition. The Council of Ministers has no function in this regard. In parallel with national competition authorities, DG Competition has wide-ranging investigative powers to detect cartel activities and other illegal trading behaviour. In addition, DG Agriculture and Rural Development facilitates price transparency for suppliers through a standardised system of market price reporting implemented by Member States by reference to uniform criteria for classifying bovine carcases according to conformation, fat and sex at slaughter plants.

If there were evidence of systemic failure on the scale implied in the question, then the matter could be brought to the attention of DG Competition. However, I am not aware of any such evidence and in its absence I would be wary of the unintended consequences of undermining consumer confidence in an industry that is hugely important to this country not just in terms of generating almost €2 billion in export earnings last year but also in adding value to the raw material produced by 70,000 specialist beef farmers. These linkages encapsulate the mutually dependent relationship between the production and processing stages of the beef supply chain.

With regard to the more general food policy issues raised by the Deputy, the production of foodstuffs in the EU is governed by an overarching legal framework known as the Hygiene Package. This integrated regime, which came into effect across all Member States on 1 January 2006, sets out clear, comprehensive and consistent rules for operators throughout the supply chain. With traceability as a core concept, the Hygiene Package regulates food and feed hygiene along with the production, control and marketing of products of animal origin, and animal health issues in relation to the production of those products.

The Hygiene Package was motivated by the necessity to ensure high levels of public health protection in relation to food production. The underlying principle is that food producers should bear full responsibility for the safety of the food that they produce. Competent authorities in each jurisdiction are legally obliged to conduct official controls to verify compliance with rules aimed at:

- preventing, eliminating or reducing to acceptable levels risks to humans and animals, either directly or through the environment; &

- guaranteeing fair practices in the food trade and protecting consumer interests, including food labelling and other forms of consumer information.

- Rules in relation to labelling are also set down in Marketing Standards Regulations and in the Food Information for the Consumer Regulations.

At national level, my Department, operating under a service contract with the Food Safety Authority of Ireland, is the competent authority for the purposes of enforcing the hygiene package in approved meat plants under its supervision. The conduct of all such official controls is subject to regular and rigorous review carried out by the EU’s Food and Veterinary Office, which is tasked with evaluating compliance with standards within the EU and in third countries in relation to their exports to the EU.

The system of checks and controls put in place by the current harmonised regime operating throughout all 28 countries of the EU is therefore sufficiently robust to allow Competent Authorities in Member States to ensure that business practices in the beef processing industry comply with European and domestic regulations pertaining to competition, labelling and food safety and to take appropriate and decisive action where they do not.