Madam, - While it has been important to minimise the risk in recent days regarding human exposure to dioxins in pigmeat, the Government call to withdraw all pork products has been very heavy handed, which indicates a problem with traceability policy.
Successive ministers for agriculture have boasted about how active the Government has been in promoting traceability, with a key emphasis on tracking food "from farm to fork".
This oft-quoted slogan looks patently ridiculous now as perfectly safe Irish pork everywhere is being destroyed just before the Christmas season.
The EU, since a similar dioxin scare in Belgium in 1999, has urged member states to take stronger action with regards to traceability.
A key point promoted by the EU is not just concerned with protecting public health during food scares, but also with encouraging the ability of member states to target food withdrawals and ensure there is minimal disruption to trade.
While Minister for Health Mary Harney ("What is safe to eat and who will pay?" December 8th) has said that those losing money from this food scare will not be compensated, I do not feel that this stance is sustainable.
Farmers, butchers and all others in the trade cannot be expected to lose out when they have sold perfectly good produce simply because standards have not been met elsewhere. Therefore, I expect that it will ultimately be the taxpayer who will, yet again, foot the bill for this food scare.
The Government should also outline exactly what they meant by their regular espousing of the term "from farm to fork" in recent years, and exactly what measures they took to promote this, as the fact that the entire Irish pork trade is undermined due to something that occurred on nine farms raises serious questions about the effectiveness of traceability initiatives. For example, can the Minister for Health say whether any lessons were learnt regarding efficient traceability from the Sudan Red 1 dye food safety concern that occurred on a smaller scale in 2005? Superquinn, with regards to pork it sells, states on its website that: "The purchase records for all feeds are inspected and audited. There is full traceability to the mill where the ingredients used in the manufacture of the feeds are available for inspection."
Has the Government made any initiative in recent years to promote a similar traceability policy to that enforced by Superquinn? If so, then the current scale of this crisis should have been prevented. - Yours, etc,
Madam, - When asked four times on RTÉ's News at One (December 8th) whether the contaminated animal feed plant in Carlow had been inspected in the last 12 months, Minister for Agriculture Brendan Smith, ducking and diving, said he could not answer "off the top of my head".
I suggest he should have had chapter and verse on that plant "inside his head" within an hour of its exposure. What are his 2,000 staff for?
In any other country, such an incompetent would have been long gone "out on the top of his head". - Yours, etc,
Madam, - The fact that the world's media are having a field day with the pork crisis is no surprise considering that Ireland's own media have had a field day with the issue since it was announced on Saturday.
From listening to an objective veterinary expert in the field it appears that the chance of any harm being done to humans from consuming infected pork would be minor and would only result from a huge amount of the said pork being eaten.
It raises the question, has the sensationalist style of media that has developed in this country, especially since Mr Cowen became Taoiseach and the Lisbon referendum, finally done some lasting damage on the international stage? It surely now is time for some factual and objective reporting in this time of crisis for Ireland. - Yours, etc,
Madam, - You report (December 9th) Alan Reilly, scientist and deputy chief executive of the Food Safety Authority of Ireland, answering the question about the risk to someone who ate the contaminated pork every day since September 1st, with "Well you see, people don't eat pork every single day. . . we are firmly of the belief that the risk to public health are extremely low".
For this answer to be reassuring to the ordinary "pork-consumer", the FSAI need to share with us the scientific facts on which they base their "belief".
Prof James Heffron of UCC is correct in insisting that people need facts on how the risk assessment was calculated rather than "bland assurances," (December 9th).
Dr Reilly also indicates that the European Commission had sought an opinion on the likely health effects of the dioxin contamination. Is this opinion being sought from the FSAI? If so, I hope the FSAI's response will be explicitly scientifically factual, and that perhaps they would share it with the public at large. If by any chance the FSAI does not know the answers to these health risks questions, perhaps they could direct us to someone who does. - Yours, etc,
Madam, - The recall of pork products has been widely covered in the media and the source and nature of the contaminant seems to be known. However I have not seen any discussion of what will happen to the estimated 100,000 pigs that are to be slaughtered or to existing stocks of pigmeat.
This hazardous waste cannot simply be dumped into landfill or exported and the question that arises is what is to be done. In a previous case of contaminated meat - the BSE crisis - the carcasses are still, as far as one can tell, in limbo in a cold store somewhere in the country.
The only viable solution to this and similar hazardous waste is thermal treatment or incineration, which properly operated and supervised, carries the least possible risk. - Yours, etc,