Details of an EU-wide food safety campaign to educate children about the risks of food poisoning and how they can prevent it were announced in Dublin yesterday.
The central theme of the £3 million campaign, which is being co-ordinated here by the Food Safety Authority of Ireland (FSAI), is the importance of the correct temperature for storing food.
Research carried out by the FSAI, which was also presented yesterday, showed that although 98 per cent of people felt it was important to keep their fridge at the right temperature, only 12 per cent knew that under 5 degrees was the correct temperature.
The study also indicated three quarters of people do not defrost food properly. Most said they defrosted food on a counter top and only 26 per cent correctly defrosted food in the fridge or microwave.
Giant-sized fridges, big thermometers and larger-than-life bugs will be used to instill in 9- to 12-year-old children the importance of keeping the temperature in a fridge below five degrees. Other research shows this age group is most responsive to new information and, in time, most influential in changing public attitudes. Almost 120,000 students in 3,500 schools across the State will benefit from the programme. The FSAI chairman, Dr Daniel O'Hare, said he hoped the children would pass on what they learn to their parents.
The first children to participate in the awareness programme were pupils of Gaelscoil Cholaiste Mhuire, Parnell Square, Dublin.
The EU Commissioner for Health and Consumer Protection, Mr David Byrne, who announced the initiative, said consumer confidence in food had been shaken by BSE, growth promoters, antibiotics, salmonella and E.coli.
While these issues had to be tackled by appropriate legislation and controls, responsibility for food safety lay as much with consumers as producers and traders, he said. Despite BSE and other crises, the food we eat "has probably never been safer", Mr Byrne added. Nevertheless, the EU and national authorities were relentlessly working to tackle any weaknesses in the food chain to ensure consumers were provided with safe food, he said.
He rejected suggestions that the area of food safety was now over-regulated. "We have to remain vigilant about this and the measures that are put in place are for everybody's protection and everybody's safety."