A Co Dublin butcher and supermarket, said to have run a "serious" risk of infecting customers with E-coli, was fined £5,700 yesterday in Dublin District Court.
The owners of Fenelons of Church Rd, Ballybrack, were also ordered to pay £450 costs to the Eastern Health Board for 19 breaches of hygiene laws on November 13th last.
An environmental health officer, Ms Rosalie Prendergast, said she found cooked hams stored directly under raw meats in an area where there were bloodstains on walls and doors that staff came in contact with.
In the shop area, salad rolls were being prepared on a tablecloth near raw meat and bloodstained floors, Ms Prendergast said. The conditions made cross-contamination "very likely" and were particularly serious given the danger of E-coli 0157 which could cause illness or death at an extremely low infection dosage.
There were also larvae and rodent droppings found on the premises. Parts of the storage area were black with dirt and washing facilities for staff were inadequate.
She added that further inspections had found continued breaches of the hygiene laws although the owners had stopped food manufacture and sausagemaking.
Judge Thomas Fitzpatrick, who was told the owners had been fined £500 for hygiene breaches in 1995, said it was an "appalling case" and that it was surprising there had not been an E-coli outbreak.
The owner, Mr John Fenelon (65), was selling the business in September, the judge said "I hope he is gone out of business, not going out of business. He is not entitled to run a premises of that type. It does not take much to keep a premises clean, tidy and hygienic."