The new Food Safety Board will have more powers than the Cabinet, the Minister for Agriculture told the opening session of the ICOS conference in Dublin yesterday.
Mr Yates told delegates to the umbrella body for the Irish cooperative movement that the new board had been "seriously misunderstood and misrepresented" in the past week.
He said the board, with a budget of £2 million, will be statutorily independent of all ministers and departments, and all control agencies would be required to submit control and inspection protocols to it for approval.
The board would regularly monitor the practical operation of the control and inspection procedures and would audit the results of these procedures.
Mr Yates added the board would have power to make recommendations binding on the agencies prior to the protocol approval or arising out of its monitoring of each agency's activities.
These decisions of the board would cover the control and inspection procedures and the penalties for breaches of the rules of food safety, and the results of testing for residues would be supplied to the board for publication.
Sir Leon Brittan, vice president of the European Commission, said that in an era where exports cannot be achieved without subsidy, intervention or production restraint are the only choices left.
"But intervention can only be a short term answer. Without an increase in domestic consumption or an adjustment to production, pro longed intervention would lead to an unsustainable build up of stocks," he said.
"So if we remain reliant on export subsidies in order to access the world market, respecting our World Trade Organisation commitments will mean tight controls on production," he said.
Sir Leon said the need to export without subsidies would become more and more crucial as would the need for reduced reliance on price support, compensated where necessary by direct payments.
The conference, at the Burlington Hotel, Dublin, continues today.