THE president of Dublin City University, Dr Daniel O'Hare, has been appointed chairman of the new Food Safety Board which was established on an interim basis yesterday.
The primary function of the board, which will have wide ranging and independent powers, will be to act in a policing and auditing role in relation to other food control agencies. This will allow it to act as a third party guarantor of the effectiveness and adequacy of those agencies.
Announcing the membership and terms of reference yesterday, the Minister for Health Mr Noonan, indicated that the board's establishment was a criticism of the people doing the job already.
"If we thought that the job was being done up to par right across the agencies, then we wouldn't be putting in people with a policing band auditing function," he said.
The responsibility for food control ranged across five Departments at present from Agriculture, which was charged with the production, manufacture and processing of food, to Environment, where the local authorities oversaw the standards in abattoirs.
The new board, he continued, would have a supervisory role in relation to all food control agencies. It could commission research and collaborate with other agencies in this respect.
It was envisaged the board would work on the basis of predetermined annual programmes, enabling it to undertake detailed analysis of selected areas and respond to new developments as they arose.
Asked to give practical examples of the board's functions, Mr Noonan suggested it could investigate what Department of Agriculture vets should be doing in the meat plants.
"We'll move into the Department. In the first instance, we'll ask for their records. We hope they will co operate and give them to us, but there will be power under the Act to requisition the records if they are not giving them to us. Then we will proceed down the line to see what are the standards which, under law, should be enforced."
The Minister said the board would be put on a statutory basis when new legislation was introduced early next year.
The Bill would ensure that it had powers to draw up binding hygiene and safety standards for any food sector or product, where no such standard currently existed in EU or national law.
The board's staff would be given full powers of enforcement, including rights of entry to premises, right to seize and destroy contaminated food, the right to see and seize records. It would also have powers of prosecution.
Mr Noonan suggested that in the majority of cases, it was considered unlikely that prosecutions would be necessary. Instead, the board would have the authority to publish all reports of its audits and it was expected that this would ensure compliance by all parties.
The publication of regular, comprehensive reports, without the necessity to receive the permission of the Minister, was seen as central to the board's work. If an adverse finding was being made against any person or agency, they would be shown the finding before publication and invited to make public comments on it.
He was advised that this course was necessary in the interests of natural justice. But, he added, the adverse finding would not be changed.
The board, which will have an initial budget of £2 million, is expected to advertise for a chief executive shortly.
