All meat processing plants will be required from next year to have their own comprehensive testing systems to trace any prohibited substances such as anabolic steroids or veterinary drug residues in their products, the Minister for Agriculture and Food, Mr Walsh, has said.
The testing arrangements for residues will involve increased analysis of meat samples going through the plants, which will add to production costs, while the programme proposed in each processing unit will have to be vetted by the Department of Agriculture.
The new "self-monitoring" arrangements apply to beef, lamb, pig, poultry and deer processing, though similar testing of milk, eggs and horses will be necessary. This is a consequence of new food safety provisions across all food sectors being introduced by Government departments and the Food Safety Authority of Ireland, which means "responsibility for ensuring that Irish food is safe and wholesome rests first and foremost with producers and processors".
Commenting after releasing the results of the 1998 national monitoring programme for animal residues from veterinary drugs or other contaminants, Mr Walsh underlined the new demands on producers since amended regulations on the control of animal remedies and their residues became law last December.
He added: "From next year, processors will be required to submit plans under which they will themselves carry out a stipulated minimum level of sampling and testing for a range of substances . . . They (the plans) will have to be approved by the Department and then implemented."
The regulations allow for an immediate increase in sampling where problems are indicated and, if necessary, detention and condemnation of carcasses. "Rather than viewing it as an additional burden, I'm confident that progressive producers and processors will see this as a further selling point for Irish food, particularly on competitive export markets," Mr Walsh said. Self-monitoring would be supplemented by Department checks using the most up-to-date technology.
The 1998 results conveyed "a generally positive picture", he said. The most commonly detected residues in meat were anabolic steroids and related compounds in cattle, and antibacterial substances (veterinary drugs such as sulphonamides and quinolones) found in pigs - and, to a lesser extent, in cattle.
The overall level of positive tests in these categories is, however, relatively low. There were 349 "positives" out of 41,112 tests on pigs indicating the presence of anti-bacterial substances (which act like antibiotics but are produced synthetically).
With cattle, the equivalent figure was 150 positives out of 2,851 tests. There were 28 positives out of 48,357 tests of cattle samples for prohibited substances; 12 of these indicated the presence of steroids, while 15 indicated the presence of beta-agonists.
With a range of other compounds, next to no residues were found, other than slightly elevated levels of anti-bacterial substances detected in sheep, poultry, farmed deer, milk and horses. Analysis of eggs found no prohibited substances, though the number of samples tested was low.
