Clare Daly (Dublin Fingal, Independent)
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455. To ask the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine further to Parliamentary Question No. 180 of 7 December 2017, if his Department is unable to cite legislation or a legal basis for withholding publication of the audit report on the organic status of the aquaculture sites operated by a company (details supplied) and is thereby protecting the commercial interests of the operator at the expense of the overriding public interest in having a bona fide organic food programme. [3245/18]

Michael Creed (Cork North West, Fine Gael)
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My Department, as the Competent Authority, delegates the task of certification and inspection, to which organic operators producing, preparing, storing or importing produce from third countries are subject, to approved Organic Control Bodies. This is in accordance with the governing EU regulations. Since 2005, the associated services and obligations of the Organic Control Bodies are formalised by service agreements between the Department and the Organic Control Bodies concerned.

Under the Service Agreement referred to, there is a confidentiality clause whereby the parties to the Service Agreement agree to hold confidential all information, documentation and other material received, provided or obtained arising from the aforementioned agreement. This confidentiality clause includes an undertaking not to disclose any such information to any third party.

However, in the case in question I have already confirmed that the outcome of these inspections indicated that the sites examined were compliant with the rules governing the organic sector. While I cannot release the actual data collected as this would be commercially sensitive, as well as protected under the explicit terms of the Service Agreement mentioned above, I am quite happy to share the detail of what is inspected in every case, the result of which provides the basis for determining whether or not an operator is compliant.