Only five inspectors are in place to monitor the 43,000 food outlets where beef must now be labelled with the country of origin, Fine Gael agriculture spokesman Denis Naughten has claimed.
He said reports that only a fraction of restaurants were complying with the new food labelling laws on the country of origin of beef was "a damning example" of the failure of Government to enforce our food laws.
"It is clear that the catering trade is unconcerned that they are in breach of the law even though many representative bodies had flagged the new law to their members in the last month," he said.
He said the legislation, which obliges all catering establishments to state clearly the origin of their beef, had been in place for a number of months.
"The reality is that enforcement is grossly inadequate.
"For example, there are just five auditors within the Food Safety Authority of Ireland to deal with the 43,000 food businesses in this country," he said.
"There is not much point in the Minister for Agriculture launching new food labelling laws if the catering trade is not forced to comply," he said.
Mr Naughten said the fact was that the Irish public were being misled.
They could be eating beef from Brazil, lamb from New Zealand, chicken from Asia or pork from the United States while under the impression that they were eating Irish produce, he said.
"Aside from the lack of transparency on country of origin, consumers should be aware that foods produced outside of Ireland may not be subject to the same rigorous standards which apply here and that their food may have travelled up to 3,000 miles before it reaches their table," Mr Naughten added.