Róisín Shortall (Dublin North West, Social Democrats)
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798. To ask the Minister for Health the inspection regime in place to establish the veracity of nutritional information on food labelling; if he will provide statistics on enforcement activity, including numbers of penalties imposed, prosecutions taken and so on; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [1424/17]

Róisín Shortall (Dublin North West, Social Democrats)
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1248. To ask the Minister for Health the role of his Department in relation to legislating for nutritional information on food labelling; and his plans to make nutritional information compulsory. [1425/17]

Róisín Shortall (Dublin North West, Social Democrats)
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1255. To ask the Minister for Health the role of his Department in relation to legislating for nutritional information on food labelling; and his plans to make per portion and consumption information compulsory. [1441/17]

Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael)
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I propose to take Questions Nos. 798, 1248 and 1255 together.

This Department's role in legislating for nutritional information on food labelling involves discussing and contributing to the formation of policy at EU level. The central piece of EU legislation concerning food labelling is Regulation (EU) No.1169/2011 on the provision of food information to consumers. This Regulation has been given effect in Irish law by the European Union (Provision of Food Information to Consumers) Regulations 2014 and 2016. These Regulations provide for a mandatory nutritional declaration on pre-packed foods indicating the amounts of energy, fat, saturates, carbohydrates, protein, sugars and salt per 100g/100ml of the food product. This nutritional declaration for pre-packed foods became mandatory from 13th December 2016.

In addition to the above requirements food business operators may also present these details per portion size, if desired. However, portion-based labelling is not mandatory under the current legal framework. Food business operators may give supplementary information on the amounts of vitamins, minerals, fibre and types of fat in the food, if desired.

In general, inspections to assess compliance with food labelling are carried out as part of the routine scheduled official controls in food businesses. In 2015, 66,819 such official control inspections were carried out by Authorised Officers of the Health Service Executive (HSE), the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine (DAFM), the Local Authority Veterinary Service (LAVS), the Sea- Fisheries Protection Authority (SFPA) and the National Standards Authority of Ireland (NSAI). As part of these inspections in 2015, 11,422 specific checks on food labelling were carried out by Authorised Officers of the HSE and SFPA. Information is not available on how many of these labelling checks specifically related to nutritional labelling.

As stated above, the legislative changes with regard to nutritional labelling are only in force since December 2016 and, therefore, official controls under this legislation have only just commenced. The FSAI is not aware of any prosecutions taken under this legislation since its introduction in December 2016.

There are currently no plans at EU or national level to provide for mandatory nutritional information on a per serving/portion basis.

The National Obesity Policy and Action Plan 2016-2025 states that the relevant parties will “Review EU consumer information labelling of food products and with a view to its application in the Irish market.” Furthermore, the Special Action Group on Obesity (SAGO), which consists of a number of stakeholders including representatives from the Department of Health and the Food Safety Authority of Ireland (FSAI), is considering a wide range of actions which could be taken to counter obesity, including labelling.