Clare Daly (Dublin Fingal, Independent)
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381. To ask the Minister for Health if his attention has been drawn to a planning application (details supplied) whereby it is proposed that dog waste, comprising urine and faeces, be spread on tillage lands; his views on the public safety and health implications of such a plan; and if he will clarify with the Food Safety Authority and the Environmental Protection Agency whether such a plan poses a risk to public and animal health as well as to the environment. [15294/17]

Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael)
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Policy responsibility relating to planning applications, waste management, primary food production, animal health, and the environment reside with the Department of Housing, Planning, Community and Local Government, the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine and the Department of Communications, Climate Action and the Environment respectively.

The Food Safety Authority of Ireland (FSAI) has informed me that in 2008 the Scientific Committee of the FSAI published a report entitled "Food Safety Implications of Land-spreading Agricultural, Municipal and Industrial Organic Materials on Agricultural Land used for Food Production in Ireland".

This report highlighted the issues surrounding the land-spreading of organic agricultural (OA) and organic municipal and industrial materials (OMI) on agricultural land used for food production and made a number of recommendations (see page 67 of the link: ). The 2008 report did not specifically consider dog faeces from dog-breeding establishments as part of the risk assessment. The spreading of dog faeces from dog breeding establishments was not part of practices at that time and therefore did not feature in the report. Nevertheless the report did state that ready-to-eat produce (i.e. food not cooked before consumption) poses a particular food safety risk when land on which they are grown is spread with OA or OMI materials.