Public information on food safety and hygiene is to be provided in a new, one-stop centre opened by the Food Safety Authority of Ireland. It has been created to help counteract increasing cases of food-borne illness and to reassure consumers when food poisoning outbreaks or food scares linked to particular products occur.
The Food Safety Information Centre is at Lower Abbey Street, Dublin, but the FSA said that with its helpline and computer technology, including Internet access, it would act as a free national resource. A task force on food safety education would also be based at the centre.
The FSA has issued information leaflets, which are available from the centre. In line with its commitment to be consumer-driven, one outlines "how to make a complaint about food" and another is on "understanding food labels". The FSA is to refer people to appropriate health authorities when complaints arise, though in time it may process them.
The FSA chief executive, Dr Patrick Wall, said nobody could afford to be complacent as a recent Dublin salmonella outbreak had shown, where it was lucky nobody died. The public had to be wary of poor quality food or bad practices.
Hygiene messages were so simple that many were asking why they were being preached to. Yet there were 900 Irish cases of salmonella poisoning last year, and these only represented the severe end of the spectrum. "The real figure may be 100 times this".
The Government is committed to providing the kind of reassurance consumers now seek in terms of food safety, said the Health Minister of State, Dr Tom Moffatt. The FSA would take over full responsibility for food control services, as outlined in a Bill due to be published within days. The centre was officially opened yesterday by RTE broadcasters Gay Byrne and Kathleen Watkins.
It would bring to an end the long-standing problem of not knowing where to refer people concerned about food, Mr Byrne said. The only pity was that the Government had to be propelled into action by recent scares. But an agency with a staggering remit "from farm to fork" was now in place.
The Consumer Association of Ireland chairman, Dr Peter Dargan, said he thought he would never see the day in Ireland when food and associated safety issues were separated from producer and agriculture industry interests.
The FSA and the centre suggested a new and welcome independent body was operating in the public interest.
The centre at Abbey Court, Lower Abbey Street, Dublin 1 (adjoining the Irish Life Mall), opens from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., Monday to Friday. Its freephone number is 1800-336677. Internet access: www.fsai.ie
