Consumers association calls for food ministry

The Government should establish a new ministry for food, according to the Consumers Association of Ireland.

The CAI claims the Department of Agriculture is too dependent on "farmers' votes" to objectively safeguard food.

The comment was made after a three-year-old bull was found to be infected with BSE on a farm in Co Limerick.

Discovering the disease in an animal so young has led to concern. It was born after 1997 when a law banning feed containing meat and bonemeal - suspected of causing BSE - should have been fully enforced.

Mr Peter Dargan, the CAI's spokesman on food, said the Government has been far too lax in enforcing regulations designed to keep meat and bonemeal feed out of the animal food chain.

"The laws are not being properly supervised, it is as simple as that," he said.

Despite the continued high incidence of the disease in recent years there have be no prosecutions of farmers feeding meat and bonemeal to animals or of millers or distributors selling it to farmers, he said.

Mr Dargan said some farmers had continued to use meat and bonemeal because it is cheaper than other feed. He added there were still 200,000 tonnes of the feed in circulation because farmers had no way of disposing of it.

However, other groups have called for calm among consumers despite the latest positive test.

The Food Safety Authority, in a brief statement yesterday, conceded the positive test was proof that the State's first "layer of control" on BSE, the total ban on feeding meat the bonemeal, had failed.

But the detection of the animal proved the second "surveillance layer" was a success.

An Bord Bia said the latest case will have no impact on the consumption of Irish beef.

"This is an isolated case," said operations director Mr Aidan Cotter.

The age profile of animals found with BSE was getting older all the time and this was a positive trend, he added.

The Associated Craft Butchers of Ireland chief executive, Mr Pat Brady, said the vast majority of its members slaughtered animals "much younger" than 30 months.

"We are disappointed that this case has happened but we don't feel it undermines the safety of Irish beef. The issue is one of information. We always tell our members never to leave a customer short of information on BSE and then it is up to the consumer themselves."

Butchers and other food providers will probably never be in a position to offer an absolute guarantee that the products they sell for consumption are completely safe, he added.

Veterinary Ireland, the vets association, sought to reassure consumers that Irish beef was safe.

Its president, Mr Fintan Graham, said the fact that the case was uncovered proved the checks in place for detecting BSE were working.

"There is a range of checks in place to ensure that no BSE-infected material can enter the food chain and these have been demonstrated to be effective," he said.