Irish Pork Recall - Europe says we are safe.

Well they said on the 9 news on Monday I think that they were leaving the plastic packaging on the bread. Anyone else hear that ?

EvotingMachine0197 wrote:

Well they said on the 9 news on Monday I think that they were leaving the plastic packaging on the bread. Anyone else hear that ?

Nothing like a bit of plastic for the old diet..

I was right. The biggest load of horseshit that e ver came down the pike.

Why do these losers not resign. More importantly, why is there still some losers supporting these loser. The couldn't run a chip van

youngdan wrote:

I was right. The biggest load of horseshit that e ver came down the pike.

Why do these losers not resign. More importantly, why is there still some losers supporting these loser. The couldn't run a chip van

Well I can understand that a mechanism kicked in where they had to pull all the food because of the pcbs profile as a dangerous toxin. I don't understand why there wasn't a mechanism for isolating affected meat only - some kind of quarantining device.

No, they couldn't run a chip van, it's true. But they'll have to learn though. Something has to happen here now. Joan Burton for the Oppostion (Labour) was just on the radio crying out for a new pay deal renegotiated with the Social Partners or general civil service. They are due to get pay rises next October but shouldn't they get a pay CUT for next year. That's a bit off topic but on the general subject of allocating money for things of value rather than pouring it into public pay. There will be deflation next year as well as economic contraction but civil servants will be rolling in it unless they take that cut.

We need to get into the mindset of prioritising spending of money on stuff that lasts, has a direct impact, adds value to the mechanisms we already have. But yeah, they've taken a machete to public spending where a scalpel is needed. I feel they think we don't have time for scalpels though and they're slashing and burning in a very panicked way now. We need to know what it is that adds value and wealth to our society instead of mindless cuts where they're not needed and cuts where they do too much damage.

Who is Joan Brutan. I hope she is not some socialist always crying over something

johnfás wrote:

EvotingMachine0197 wrote:

Well they said on the 9 news on Monday I think that they were leaving the plastic packaging on the bread. Anyone else hear that ?

Nothing like a bit of plastic for the old diet..

I heard that that may well be true and if true, it is disgraceful. At the moment though, all we seem to have to go on is rumours and speculation. I suppose there will be a report from each of the four agencies involved in due course.

According to this, the Department of Agriculture and Food monitors animal feed inside the farm gate and also

Quote :

Animal Feed Establishments
Licensing/Registration/Approval
Feed Sampling/Quality
Feed Traceability
Feed Labelling
Residue/Pathogens checks
Home Mixer Registration

This is an interesting pdf of Patrick Wall reporting to an Oireachtas Committee in 2003 on behalf of the Food Safety Authority. He emphasised that animal feed had been responsible for all the recent serious health problems, including BSE and dioxins. He emphasised the value of traceability. He said that there had been 46 different agencies with separate food responsibilities not talking to each other and the process had not been joined up. The FSA I think was meant to improve that situation, but the FSA he said was not reponsible for animal feed mills and on farm food safety.

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The Deputy is correct in saying that the major food scares we have had have been linked to contaminated animal feed. BSE was due to contaminated meat and bonemeal. The dioxin scare in Belgium was because animal feed became contaminated with dioxins, and the authorities could not identify where the feed went or the destination of the animals that ate it. The damage done to the Belgian food industry amounted to £1.5 billion. The Ministers for Health and Agriculture had to resign and the Government fell. It was a serious issue, as was the case of pharmaceutical waste entering animal feed. BSE was a feed issue and it highlighted the issue of food safety. We will have to resolve this issue in Ireland because of the national plan we have to produce

http://www.foodassurance.teagasc.ie/FAOL/foodChainControls/keyAgencies/DAF+EnforcementRole.

It took a long time to find information on licensing of animal feed as the DAF website uses the term feedingstuffs - nobody else seems to use this term.
In their "what's new" section there is a list of "licensed and/or approved" feed manufacturers.

EU legislation is on the website here: http://www.agriculture.gov.ie/index.jsp?file=feedingstuffs/gen_principles.xml

There is a heading "National Legislation" under which is blank space.

There is an EU regulation which requires DAF to maintain a register of feed business operators

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Each year Member States are required to establish and implement an inspection and sampling programme designed to assess compliance with feed legislation and, before the end of April the following year, forward a detailed report on the implementation of the programme to the Commission for discussion between Member States. The report submitted by Ireland for 2005 can be found at the following link.

http://www.agriculture.gov.ie/feedingstuffs/Annual%20Report%202005.pdf

The Report lists the staffing arrangements and responsibilities - there was no specific reference to "recycling" as a category.
DAF has to monitor feed coming into the country and on-farm - to check that feed is coming from registered operators.

http://www.agriculture.gov.ie/index.jsp?file=feedingstuffs/official_insps.xml
[quote]A major use for by-products from the food and drink sector is animal feed. The production
processes in numerous sectors (e.g. sugar production, oilseed crushing, starch production and
malt production) generate materials that are used as feed material either directly by farmers or
by the animal compound feed industry. Although not all production residues destined for
animal feed are automatically non-wastes16, the above feed materials are produced
deliberately in adapted production processes, or may not be produced deliberately but meet
the cumulative by-product criteria of the court as their further use in animal feed is certain,
without further processing outside of the production process of that material. In addition, the
feed material is governed by legislation such as Regulation 178/2002 on food law17 and
Directive 96/25/EC on the circulation and use of feed material18. In both cases, this material
can therefore be considered to fall outside of the definition of waste.[/quote]
16COMMUNICATION FROM THE COMMISSION TO THE COUNCIL
AND THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT on the Interpretative Communication on waste and by-products

This is Reg 178/2002
http://eur-lex.europa.eu/pri/en/oj/dat/2002/l_031/l_03120020201en00010024.pdf

It requires traceability, responsibility by the producer, and looks for risk assessment and a continuum of monitoring along the food chain.

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(28) Experience has shown that the functioning of the
internal market in food or feed can be jeopardised where
it is impossible to trace food and feed. It is therefore
necessary to establish a comprehensive system of traceability
within food and feed businesses so that targeted
and accurate withdrawals can be undertaken or information
given to consumers or control officials, thereby
avoiding the potential for unnecessary wider disruption
in the event of food safety problems

Quote :

(30) A food business operator is best placed to devise a safe
system for supplying food and ensuring that the food it
supplies is safe; thus, it should have primary legal
responsibility for ensuring food safety. Although this
principle exists in some Member States and areas of food
law, in other areas this is either not explicit or else
responsibility is assumed by the competent authorities of
the Member State through the control activities they
carry out. Such disparities are liable to create barriers to
trade and distort competition between food business
operators in different Member States

From the Commission paper, it emerges that food recycled for animal feed is not categorised as waste: it appears to me that a situation in which an animal feed producer was licensed as a waste operation (and not as a feed producer) was wrong, and surely somebody should have spotted that - we are told that DAF had inspected the premises twice.

From a letter to the Independent by James Heffron, of UCC.

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I do not wish to reiterate what has already been written on this issue but, in my opinion, there are three major aspects to this situation which deserve further comment.

Those are: the regulation of inputs to the feed materials; the manner and extent of communicating the overall situation to the public; and the way in which the final pork contamination results were assessed in the context of possible adverse human health effects.

It now appears that there was substantial failure to ensure that the process by which some of the ingredients which went into the feedstuffs was licensed and monitored, and that it was at this step that the potentially toxic PCB was introduced to the feed for pigs for nine farms.

Clearly this is the critical step in the food supply chain and it should be subject to the most stringent regulation.

It is important to note that PCBs are not only potentially toxic dioxin-like substances but are also regarded as persistent organic pollutants -- some of which are banned under the Stockholm Agreement.

They simply should not be present in any foodstuffs at any stage except at background concentrations.

http://www.independent.ie/opinion/analysis/animal-feed-regulation-is-the-key-issue-in-pork-crisis-1568846.html

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Looking to the future, the relevant regulatory bodies need to prioritise regulation of one of the most critical stages in meat production -- feedstuff ingredient processing.

Government has appointed an Expert Group to examine the health implications of the contamination, in which James Heffron will take part.

I still can't understand how the Millstream Plant was inspected by the Department of Agriculture, if the plant was not registered or approved as a feestuff producer. It is not on their list.

http://www.pr-inside.com/dublin-eu-offer-200m-255m-to-r963181.htm - A PR view of the situation, that says the plant was inspected by the Department of Ag in 2007.

http://www.herald.ie/national-news/catalogue-of-errors-that-wrecked-a-whole-industry-1568221.html - This report says the EPA regulates the use of the recycled oil, but didn't know about it so didn't inspect. The Department of Ag says

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Inquiries by the the Department of Agriculture have found that the oil being used at Millstream Power Recycling was not suitable for use in the production of animal feed.

Quote :

The factory was not licenced by the EPA but was working under a waste permit issued by Carlow Co Council for the recycling of food. A team from the EPA visited the plant yesterday to carry out an inspection.

The plant was deemed to be "low risk" by the Department and had passed routine inspections in 2006 and 2007. It had been due to be inspected again in late November, early December.

Quote :

The inspections did not examine the type of oil being used in the plant.

A senior official from the Department of Agriculture, Dermot Ryan, confirmed that the inspection did not examine the use of the oil, but said this would be "something that would be look at the in the future".

Quote :

The oil was "not appropriate" for the type of work being carried out at the factory and required a licence from the EPA. "Our inspections on the premises told us everything was satisfactory," he told a press conference in Government Buildings yesterday. The EPA is checking all other facilities making animal feed to ensure they are not using recycled or industrial oil.
Some 2,000 workers in pig production facilities have already been laid off but as many as 6,000 jobs could be on the line with an estimated €200m needed to restart the industry.

Millstream Power have been issued a "directive"? by Carlow County Council under the Waste Management Act.

God be with the times a pig could be a pig.

Now we have waste permits. Lucky pigs never learned to smoke or there would be a law against advertizing tobacco products to pigs. How about alcohol slops to pigs. Are there underage pigs.

The quicker the state is broke the better.

I seem to have survived my Irish breakfast

youngdan wrote:

God be with the times a pig could be a pig.

Now we have waste permits. Lucky pigs never learned to smoke or there would be a law against advertizing tobacco products to pigs. How about alcohol slops to pigs. Are there underage pigs.

The quicker the state is broke the better.

I seem to have survived my Irish breakfast

After paying out 200 million euro on this sorry fiasco, they are one step nearer.