Staff shortages impede checks for food infections, warns union

Inspections of poultry operations and on-farm monitoring for salmonella are not being carried out because of staff shortages and lack of resources at the Department of Agriculture, the union IMPACT has claimed.

Salmonella has caused 11 major food poisoning outbreaks this summer.

The shortcomings suggest "a tendency on the part of senior management to treat food safety as marginal or peripheral to the Department's core activities" rather than a central imperative, its assistant general secretary, Mr Kevin Callinan, said.

In addition to inspectors not being able to carry out statutory inspections, there were no ongoing inspections of commercial or free-range egg packing centres, he said.

At a seminar on food safety and agriculture organised by the union in Portlaoise yesterday, Mr Callinan said he had written to the Department spelling out concerns about the failure to carry out important food safety inspections but had yet to receive "a substantial reply".

Staff shortages and travel budget restrictions meant, he said:-

no salmonella monitoring at farm level;

no ongoing inspections of egg packing centres;

no ongoing inspections of registered free-range egg-production units; and

no checks on the origin of eggs at packing centres were taking place.

Mr Callinan represents 1,500 members working with the Department, many of whom are professional veterinary officers and technical staff carrying out food inspection and monitoring.

He said food safety was being jeopardised by shortages of such staff and by lack of training.

"Official meat inspectors have less training in hazard analysis than the factory staff they are supervising," he alleged.

He added: "Food safety is a secondary priority in the Department. The presence of specialist staff at various points in food production is essential to food safety and quality assurance but, despite food scares and increased consumer concerns, there has been a decline in the number of specialist inspectors."

While many of the salmonella cases have been linked to eggs, the union had for a number of years raised the "completely inadequate budgets" given to technical staff in the poultry and eggs division.

Moreover, monitoring for salmonella enteritidis (associated with poultry and eggs) and salmonella typhimurium (associated with meat) at farm level were not being dealt with, he said. "Also, no routine inspections are taking place under the EU meat marketing standards. An inspection only follows a consumer complaint."

Impact members were also concerned about lack of staff and resources for the pesticides control service. "It would appear the Department is testing for roughly 10 per cent of the amount of chemicals which it should be looking for."

Consumers would not settle for anything less than eggs from salmonella-free flocks, Dr Patrick Wall, chief executive of the Food Safety Authority of Ireland, said. Everyone working in the food sector needed to work with industry to achieve this goal.

The occurrence of salmonella in pigs and poultry was also of great concern and needed to be controlled. "Recent incidents relating to ham mean it is now essential that the proposed serological testing in pig abattoirs is enacted without delay," he said.

Agricultural officers working on food safety needed to be on constant guard, particularly those working with dairy, meat and egg sectors, Dr Wall added. Their key role would continue under service contracts to be signed with the authority.