THE new Food Safety Board of Ireland, designed to win back public confidence in the food supply has been welcomed by consumer groups and farmers but dismissed as "a toothless Government quango" by Opposition politicians.
The establishment of the board was one of the main recommendations of an interdepartmental group on food safety controls established after the British government last March announced a possible link between BSE in beef and CJD in humans.
The Cabinet yesterday agreed to establish the independent statutory food safety board under the aegis of the Minister for Health. According to an official statement, the board's primary concern will be the protection of public health and it will be afforded full legal powers to ensure regulatory comply with specific hygiene and safety standards.
A news conference planned for yesterday afternoon on the initiative was cancelled. But a Government spokesman later told journalists that the new six member board would be appointed soon on an interim basis, pending the passage of enabling legislation. The board will sit for a four year term and its non executive chairman is expected to be named next week.
The independent statutory body will operate on a £2 million annual budget and is to have a full time staff of 30, consisting of 10 administrative personnel and 20 technical workers. A location for its offices has yet to be decided.
The board will be able to commission studies and reports on hygiene and standards. Its staff will be authorised to conduct spot checks on factories and shops or any food outlet.
It may also institute legal proceedings against those suspected of breaching safety standards and impose fines and penalties.
According to the spokesman, Government Departments and agendas will be instructed to cooperate with the board.
Fianna Fail's spokesman on agriculture, Mr Brian Cowen, described the Government's proposal as "a joke". This "totally inadequate proposal" was an attempt to window dress the Government's mounting political difficulties in relation to food quality assurance, he said.
"Putting the Food Safety Advisory Board on a statutory basis is the equivalent of putting on the amplification in a talking shop. It is extraordinary that the Government should move on this vital issue on a day when the Minister for Agriculture had been scheduled for months to be out of the country," Mr Cowen added. The Progressive Democrats' Agriculture spokesman, Senator John Dardis, said the board appeared to be another toothless Government quango which would not, in itself, win back the consumer confidence already lost the Coalition's "mishandling of the crisis".