Madam, – Your Editorial regarding the export of food and drink is welcome. There is no doubting the quality of many Irish foods – vegetables, cheeses, fish, seafood, and beef, for example. Yet in the same issue you report that the HSE is threatening to close down a restaurant which does not burn its burgers into leathery oblivion (Home News, January 18th).
Apparently it may be dangerous, the jobsworths say, to serve medium or rare beefburgers. Have they gone mad? Surely it must follow, should such an idiotic policy be taken seriously, that we would no longer be able to enjoy steak tartare, and eventually ribeye à point, marinaded scallops, pink lamb, or barely cooked tuna in the Irish Republic.
Imagine what French, German, Dutch, or even English tourists would think of that.
The logic employed by the HSE is bizarre. The onus is on the producers to produce healthy food; not the restaurateurs to cremate the produce just in case they may be some nasty bacteria lurking within. If the Food Safety Authority of Ireland can’t do its job in enforcing standards within the producing industry then its bosses should be sacked. – Yours, etc,