Almost a quarter of abattoirs have supplied beef containing BSE specified risk material which represented a potential danger to public health, a Food Safety Authority of Ireland audit has found.
The specified risk material was found in an ongoing audit of 114 abattoirs over last year in 108 carcasses in 18 of the plants. A further survey of butcher shops uncovered SRM which had been supplied by 11 other abattoirs. The findings are likely to cause another serious blow to consumer confidence in the beef industry.
Last night the chief executive of the authority, Dr Patrick Wall, said the findings were worrying and presented a major challenge to the local trade. He said that while he was concerned over the SRM audit results, he would be more worried about the danger to consumers caused by E.coli 0157 by animals not being properly cleaned before processing.
"Irish consumers seem to have been protected more by the young age of the animals being slaughtered since 1996 than by regulations at the premises," said Dr Wall.
"The fact that 96 per cent of the animals slaughtered at the domestic abattoirs were under 36 months of age and these animals would not have been exposed to contaminated meat-and bone-meal, greatly reduces the threat of BSE," he said.
"However, the removal of all SRM from cattle over 12 months is an EU requirement and 100 per cent compliance is required in all abattoirs. If we find breaches of the regulations, we will close these plants down," he said.
Dr Wall called a meeting of abattoir owners and master butchers in Portlaoise yesterday to brief them on the findings of his report.
He said that he did not accept that there should be a two-tier food safety system in Ireland, and that the export meat plants were getting a "Rolls Royce" inspection service and Irish consumers were not.
He said the Food Safety Authority had called for a major upgrading of the service for the domestic market. At yesterday's meeting in Portlaoise, the abattoir owners and master butchers made the same call.
He said they had complained to him that they were getting no subsidies from the Department of Agriculture, Food and Rural Development to handle the new demands on them made by the EU, whereas the export meat plants were.
Mr Pat Brady, of the Associated Craft Butchers of Ireland, said the Government had failed to honour its commitments to the home sector by supplying money to upgrade facilities at domestic abattoirs.
He did not think Irish consumers would be best served by what had happened in Northern Ireland, where most of the small abattoirs had closed and the home market was supplied by the export meat plants.
All the abattoirs supervised by the Department of Agriculture, Food and Rural Development were found to be satisfactory at the time of audit. Appropriate action was taken in all abattoirs that were found to be non-compliant.
Retail butcher shops were also audited and to date, said the report, 164 butcher ships had been visited. Of the first 129 audited between May and August 2000, major non-compliance was found in 11 premises. Of the 35 audited in November/ December, major non-compliance was found in two.
In each case of non-compliance, detailed follow-up action was taken at the supplying abattoir.
The result of the initial audit of 78 abattoirs found that 67 were satisfactory and were graded as category two or one. This meant that while they were satisfactory, some of them were involved in minor non-compliance with the regulations.
These included poor staining of the specified-risk material removed from animals, inadequate or unmarked containers for SRM material, poor recordkeeping and a failure to split adult sheep carcasses and remove the spinal cord. However, 11 premises were unsatisfactory, with major noncompliance, and placed in category 0. This category involved the finding of remnant of spinal cord material in split cattle carcasses, which represented a potential danger to public health.
In retail outlets the audit found major non-compliance with the BSE regulations in 11 shops and minor non-compliance in a further eight. The first audit ended in August last.
"Twenty beef pieces out of a total of 1,220 carcass portions examined (1.64 per cent) were found to contain specified risk material," it said.
"A further 35 shops were visited during November/December 200. Major non-compliance was found in two shops and minor non-compliance in a further three. Of 483 pieces of meat examined, bovine spinal cord was found in two, 0.41 per cent," said the report.