Key questions in horse meat scandal remain unanswered.
We need to stop spinning this as a problem with foreign suppliers and start changing our own ways.
Green Party Food spokesperson Seamus Sheridan said today: "A week on from the FSAI revelations very serious questions remain unanswered. The first and most obvious is how a burger manufactured in this country's leading meat processing plant contained 29% horse meat? This is not a scandal created by a small abattoir hidden behind a wall. We are dealing with the Chelsea or Man City of our agricultural sector."
"There has been enough spinning that the real culprits are on foreign shores. We instead need some simple facts about what happened. We need more results from the testing of those contaminated burgers. Was the meat testing positive for horse DNA from skeletal muscle, or from illegal horse offal? Were all the other ingredients given by Seacrest to Tesco and printed on the package, labelled correctly and legal in their proportions and content?"
"Mr. Goodman's companies, along with a handful of other Irish meat processors, are the primary benefactors of the hard work and expensive investment that Bord Bia has placed in the marketing of Irish food, in particular our beef sector. Unless we get some simple and truthful answers, our Quality Assurance Scheme and Origin Green campaigns will lie in tatters."
"Minister Coveney has for too long tied his colours to the masts of our flagship multinationals, blinded by their marketing and false food claims. It is not good enough to let processors pick and choose which one of their many brands partake in state funded quality assurance schemes. They are either part of our effort to create a sustainable and successful agricultural sector and all the benefits which that will bring, or they can stay out. Our farmers do not have the luxury of this choice when it comes to quality assurance. Their farms are simply in or out. Being in is expensive, takes hard work and trust in those that they are supplying to."
"We also have to ask how did this country's meat and dairy sectors end up in the hands of so few? Ireland has a rich tradition of family farms and co-ops, but our industry is now suffering from the problems that come with factory farming as well as from higher input costs and the financial strain that come from the small margins demanded by these processors."
"But all is not lost. There is an opportunity for a dynamic and future-looking Minister for Agriculture to use this crisis to leave a legacy of higher employment, sustainability and quality in Irish food. We need funding for civic markets in all our country's large towns and cities. That would allow our traditional mixed farms wholesale direct to retailers at a local level. We also need to support our local abattoirs and wonderful network of craft butchers. There are so many opportunities for Ireland in markets where quality and taste are foremost. We produce the world's finest milk. Our beef and lamb are fantastic. It is time we had the processors and exporters that are committed to finding the best price for our country's produce, rather than being dragged down when we sell our products as the lowest common denominator."
ENDS