Written answers
Wednesday, 27 February 2019
Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine
Animal Slaughtering Standards
Denis Naughten (Roscommon-Galway, Independent)
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171. To ask the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine further to Parliamentary Question Nos. 535 to 537 of 12 February 2019, in the case of each of the 21 instances in which mechanical grading was suspended, the number of carcases that were rechecked by the manual grader back to the last known point of accuracy; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [9925/19]
Michael Creed (Cork North West, Fine Gael)
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Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) 2017/1184 of 20 April 2017 governs the monitoring of carcase classification, carcase presentation and weighing.
When the machine is found to e out of tolerance by officials from my Department the slaughter plant is instructed to revert to manual grading.
The overall performance of a machine is determined when the inspection is carried out. All carcasses are checked normally in real time on the slaughter line or on occasion in the chilling rooms to determine machine score. There is no mechanism to permit an officer to pinpoint exactly when the machine went out of tolerance.
The number of inspections conducted annually significantly exceeds the legal requirement for the minimum number of inspections set down in EU legislation. In 2018, my Department conducted almost 550 inspections. This is an average of 20 inspections per factory per year, which significantly exceeds the legal minimum requirement of 8 inspections per year. At each inspection an average of 85 carcasses were inspected for correct classification and carcase presentation. The legal requirement is 40 carcasses per inspection.
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