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APPENDIX 522 January, 1990. Mr. G. Mitchell TD, Chairman, Public Accounts Committee, Dáil Éireann, Dublin 2. Dear Chairman, Further to my attendance at the Public Accounts Committee on Thursday, 11 January, at which I gave details of the beef sampling programme undertaken by this Department in conjunction with the Customs authorities on beef produced under the 1988 Aids to Private Storage Scheme (APS), I would like to outline the current position on the matter. The examination of samples which commenced in April 1989 was completed towards the end of September. In all some 14,000 boxes were examined, including over 10,000 of the meat cut “plate and flank”. This Department has just completed an examination of the findings of the sampling programme. A meeting has been arranged with the Commission for early February to process the matter further and to consider any appropriate penalties that may be applied. Under the sampling programme, product from 9 contractors (these were responsible for almost all of the meat produced under the APS scheme) was examined. This involved checking weights and contents of boxes, checking for inclusion of ineligible product and confirming that boxes were labelled correctly. In the case of 4 contractors infringements were observed while the findings in respect of the other 5 were regarded as satisfactory. All companies concerned cooperated fully with the Department and Customs in the programme. All the product selected for sampling was physically present and available in its designated cold store, and the meat examined was found to comply fully with the relevant Community and national hygiene/quality requirements. There were no weight discrepancies observed and the Department is satisfied that the weights declared for APS and export refund purposes were in order. There were two types of infringements observed. The first infringement was that pieces of meat not individually wrapped were found in a number of boxes. For export refund purposes the relevant regulation requires that each pieces must be individually wrapped. The second infringement noted (on a much lesser scale) was the inclusion of pieces of scraps or trimmings. These would, in the main, be small pieces of meat which arise in the deboning operation, and for APS and export refund payments should have been excluded from the boxes. Bones, ligaments and such like were not found. The extent of the infringements varied significantly between companies and also between the different production units employed by the companies. In the case of both infringements, the percentage by weight of the boxes found to be ineligible was quite small. The examination also included a selection of meat cuts other than plate and flank. In these cases no infringements were found. You will appreciate that I am not in a position to discuss at this juncture the outcome for individual companies. In any case the imposition of any penalties that may arise cannot be determined in advance of the meeting with the Commission. Yours sincerely, MICHAEL C. DOWLING, Secretary, Department of Agriculture and Food. |
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