Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance)
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367. To ask the Minister for Health the reason the Irish language was excluded from consideration by the cross-Government working group on the EU Regulation on the provision of food information to consumers; her views on whether this represents a failure to uphold the State’s duty to promote Irish in public life; if she will commit to introducing clear policy measures, including legislation if required to mandate bilingual packaging in order to protect and enhance the visibility of the Irish language; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [26500/25]

Barry Heneghan (Dublin Bay North, Independent)
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375. To ask the Minister for Health the reason the use of the Irish language was not included in the remit of the cross-departmental working group established to consider new EU food labelling regulations; if she will now consider policy options, including potential legislative changes, to encourage greater use of bilingual packaging by businesses in Ireland as a way to promote and increase the visibility of the Irish language; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [26546/25]

Jennifer Carroll MacNeill (Dún Laoghaire, Fine Gael)
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I propose to take Questions Nos. 367 and 375 together.

Food labelling in the EU is governed by the Food Information to Consumers (FIC) Regulation (EU) No. 1169/2011 on the provision of food information to consumers.

The EU Commission had indicated its intention to revise the FIC Regulation in respect of the following:

Under the Farm to Fork Strategy, which is the agri-food component of the European Green Deal:

(1) Introduction of harmonised front-of-pack nutrition labelling;

(2) Setting of nutrient profiles to restrict use of health claims as a marketing tool for high fat, sugar and salt foods and restrict marketing of these foods to children;

(3) Expand the requirement for country of origin/provenance labelling;

(4) Revise the current date marking rules;

Under Europe’s Beating Cancer Plan:

(5) Introduction of a requirement for an ingredients list and nutrition declaration on alcoholic beverages.

An Inter-departmental Group (IDG) was established by my Department in 2022 to develop Ireland’s position on the above elements to be revised under the FIC Regulation. The aims/ objectives of the IDG were to discuss, develop and agree Ireland’s position on the Commissions’ proposed FIC revisions. The Commission’s proposed revision of the FIC Regulation does not include any changes to bilingual labelling and, therefore, this is not included in the IDG’s remit.

The Commission had committed to releasing a legislative proposal, including an impact assessment in late 2022 but these are still to be progressed. When the legislative proposal and impact assessment are progressed by the Commission, my Department will reconvene the IDG so that it can complete its deliberations.

In Ireland, bilingual labelling is provided for in S.I. No. 556/2014 – European Union (Provision of Food Information to Consumers) Regulations 2014. This legislation provides food business operators (FBOs) the flexibility to ensure that food placed on the market is accompanied by mandatory food information in (a) the English language, or (b) the Irish language and the English language. This flexibility was provided to ensure that the legislation was not creating a barrier to intra-EU trade, for example, if FBOs have to produce separate labels for different markets.

Developing policy options and potential legislative changes to encourage greater use of bilingual packaging by businesses in Ireland as a way to promote and increase the visibility of the Irish language is a matter for the Department of Tourism Culture Arts Gaeltacht Sport and Media.