Gunning for the vendors of food who flout the law

Like the tension in the air during the showdown at the OK Corral, there must have been quite a lot simmering at the National Ploughing Championships when Ruth Davis waded through a wet and muddy field to reach the temporary food outlets, which were sheltering under tarpaulin.

She'd donned the wellies and the white coat. She'd stepped with an inspection warrant out on to a mucky field.

At the time she was working as an environmental health officer with the South Eastern Health Board. She was a woman with a mission - to examine the hygiene standards of all the temporary food premises. No chip van was safe.

Every public house, factory, restaurant and food vending shop is liable for a visit from an environmental health officer, she says.

It takes commitment and an interest in food, nutrition and science to do such a job.

"Most people are fairly open," she says. However, some people, she says, "because you are entering their premises they are afraid to let you in but they have to."

Davis is from Greystones in Co Wicklow. She did her Leaving Cert in 1989. Her love of science was the reason she decided to do a degree course in environmental health at DIT Cathal Brugha.

"I was just good at it," she says. The course "was my first choice".

The subject is very broad, she says. The course covers issues and practices related to noise, air and food standards.

She gained work experience with the Eastern Health Board and later worked their as an environmental health officer.

As a student, she visited a range of manufacturing plants, such as NestlΘ, Yoplait, Tayto and Glanbia, to study food production and hygiene standards.

They also paid site visits to places such as Glendalough to take water and flora and fauna samples, which they later analysed and examined microscopically. They counted traffic on Dame Street as part of their air and noise pollution studies.

Her final year thesis used seaweed as a key part of her study on the heavy metals in the greater Dublin Bay area, where she used Fucus vesiculosis, the bladder-rack seaweed, as the bio-monitor.

"It's such a wide syllabus," she recalls of the DIT course. "We studied areas from law to food poisoning. We would have done all the infectious diseases - TB to polio to chicken pox and salmonella, the mode of transmission and the likelihood of getting it.

"Environmental health encompasses all the health areas. The course is tailor-made to produce environmental health officers. The big focus is on the hygiene area," she says, listing food, water, noise and air as the key strands of this approach.

She completed a masters in food science at UCD in 1996. Today Davis works as technical executive with the Food Safety Authority of Ireland, handling the management of food alerts, developing and maintaining a database of all new EU food safety legislation, giving talks and presentations on food safety and developing information packs .She's not in the frontline any more, although she still meets the public at talks and seminars, which aim to inform and heighten awareness of food issues.

It's important to be "a people person, whether you're behind the scenes or meeting environment officers or the consumers. You have to have some people-management skills. You have to be responsible and accountable. The mission of the FSAI is to protect consumers' health.

"I'm into nutrition. I like healthy food. You have to be extremely organised, especially when you are issuing a food alert."