Michael Fitzmaurice (Roscommon-Galway, Independent)
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512. To ask the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine further to Parliamentary Question No. 239 of 6 March 2019, when a factory must revert to using an approved manual grader; if there is a protocol for a farmer to follow if unhappy with the grade awarded to an animal which he or she sent to slaughter; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [12413/19]

Michael Creed (Cork North West, Fine Gael)
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Unlike mechanical grading, it is open to a farmer to appeal a manual grading of the carcass. Manual classifiers are factory employees and are licensed to classify by my Department under the EU legislation.  Therefore a farmer looking to make such an appeal or to have the grade rechecked should contact the factory in question.

Michael Fitzmaurice (Roscommon-Galway, Independent)
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513. To ask the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine if approved manual carcass graders are employed by his Department or the food business operator when they are called upon in a situation in which a mechanical grading machine is found to be working out of synchronicity; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [12414/19]

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.

If a mechanical classification machine is found to be working outside EU defined tolerances the factory is instructed to revert to manual grading immediately.  All manual classifiers are factory employees and are licensed to classify by my Department under the above regulation.  Where manual classification is applied, this is identified on the farmer's remittance documents.