Angel dust cattle tests cost 1p a pound

TESTING cattle for illegal substances costs 1p per pound of meat, the Oireachtas Committee of Public Accounts has been told. It also emerged that 1,785 animals out of 106,670 tested had residues of illegal growth promoters such as angel dust in 1994. A year later 637 out of 84,491 carcasses tested positive for illegal substances.

Mr John Ellis of Fianna Fail said that all carcasses should be tested for residues. It would help consumer confidence enormously and it cost a penny a pound.

Mr Eric Byrne of Democratic Left said that the meat industry should pay for the cost of testing and not the taxpayer. Testing had cost almost £2 million last year, he said, referring to statistics from the Department of Agriculture. Testing cost £1.27 million in 1995, while staff costs at the Central Meat Control Laboratory were £214,000 and analysis of the tests by the State Laboratory cost £184,000.

Mr Ellis agreed that the industry should pay for the testing and expressed concern about the delay in the prosecution of cases of alleged use of illegal growth promoters. Statistics from the Department showed that since 1994 - 17 people have been convicted of offences concerning illegal growth promoters while a further 136 cases are pending which allege breaches of the veterinary medicines legislation.

Of these, 118 allege breaches of the rules which ban illegal growth promoters. They were delayed by the pending judgment of the Supreme Court about the validity of the legislation.

The former Progressive Democrats leader, Mr Des O'Malley criticised correspondence from the Secretary for the Department of Agriculture, Mr Michael Dowling, to the committee.

Mr Dowling was responding to queries from the committee about how much beef was debarred from intervention between 1989 and 1991. He was also asked about the weights of boxes of intervention meat.

Mr Dowling said in his letter to the committee said that no detailed records were kept of instances where Department officers debarred meat from intervention, and there were no detailed records of officers stopping production at meat plants.

Mr O'Malley rejected this as "not credible". He said: "The truth is that records are kept but he won't disclose them to the committee." The former minister added that it was "inconceivable" that an officer would close a line for a day, which could cost tens of thousands of pounds, without keeping a record of it.