Five businesses, including a prominent Dublin hotel, were served with enforcement orders last month for breaches of food safety laws.
Health officers from the South Western Area Health Board served an improvement order on the Earl of Kildare Hotel, 47 Kildare Street, Dublin 2. Also in Dublin, the Northern Area Health Board served a closure order on the Pak Asian Market, 15 Talbot Street, Dublin 1.
Health officers in the Mid-Western Health Board served a closure order on Crawford's shop (delicatessen and store areas only) of Main Street, Roscrea, Co Tipperary. The Midland Health Board served a closure order on Sunrise, 20 JKL Street, Edenderry, Co Offaly..
A prohibition order was served on Martin Doyle & Sons Ltd, 1 Court Street, Enniscorthy, Co Wexford, by health officers in the South Eastern Health Board.
Closure orders are served when health officers are of the opinion there is, or is likely to be, "a grave and immediate danger to public health". An improvement notice is issued where an activity involving the handling and preparation etc of food is likely to pose a risk to public health if it continues. Improvement orders are issued by the District Court if an improvement notice is not complied with.
A prohibition order is issued if the activities (handling, processing, disposal, manufacturing, storage, distribution or selling food) involve or are likely to involve a serious risk to public health from a particular product, class, batch or item of food. The effect is to prohibit the sale of the product, either temporarily or permanently.
A total of 21 enforcement orders,18 closure orders, two improvement orders and one prohibition order have been issued so far this year.
Details of the food businesses served with the various orders are published on the FSAI's website at www.fsai.ie .
Mr Peter Whelan, director of service contracts with the FSAI said: "Employers are legally obliged to ensure that all staff involved in food production or preparation are adequately trained and/or supervised in food hygiene practices. Our new training programmes have been developed in response to research carried out by the FSAI which shows that 72 per cent of the food industry felt that their food safety training could be improved."
The FSAI provides basic training programmes for those who have no experience of the food industry. It also recently initiated a special training programme for management in the Chinese food sector. Since 2001, the sector has received one in six of all closure orders issued.