Louise O'Reilly (Dublin Fingal, Sinn Fein)
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589. To ask the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine if there is a plan in place to monitor the presence of mineral oil hydrocarbons in food; if his Department actively sought the involvement of food business operators including manufacturers, processors and distributors of food contact materials to assist in the monitoring of mineral oil hydrocarbons in food; if not, when such a plan will be in place; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [7372/17]

Michael Creed (Cork North West, Fine Gael)
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My colleague Simon Harris TD, Minister for Health has primary responsibility for the Food Safety Authority of Ireland and the enforcement of food laws. It co-ordinates the work of official agencies which includes inspections of food businesses, food contact material manufacturers and distributors and the delivery of food  and food contact materials sampling and testing  programmes.

On 16th January 2017, the European Commission issued Recommendation (EU) 2017/84 on the monitoring of mineral oil hydrocarbons (MOH) in food and in materials and articles intended to come into contact with food was adopted. The recommendation covers the years 2017-2018 and asks EU Member States to monitor MOH in food and food contact materials.  The recommendation is that upon detection of mineral oils, further investigations should be carried out seek to determine the contamination source.

In accordance with this recommendation, the FSAI arranged for initial monitoring for the presence of mineral oil hydrocarbons in food and food packaging material to be incorporated in the 2017 National Chemical Monitoring Programme plan.   The analysis will be carried out by the HSE’s Public Analyst Laboratory in Dublin. Currently, a generally accepted analytical method for determining the presence of MOH both in foods and packaging is not available. The Commission is working on a technical guidance to accompany the recommendation, which will be designed to assist Member States in sampling and determination of MOH and allow the uniform and consistent application of the recommendation. Therefore a more extensive programme will be implemented in 2018. Any detection of mineral oils will trigger an investigation to determine the contamination source.

The EC recommendation does not include awareness rising amongst the food sector. I am advised that the FSAI will examine the need for this when analytical methods are better developed.