With the establishment of the Food Safety Boar the Government has, at last, moved to assuage the unprecedented level of public unease about the foot we eat. The truth is that it had little alternative Consumer confidence in the farm industry has been eroded by the BSE crisis, the recent conviction of farmers for illegal use of growth promoters and the EU wide survey of antibiotic levels in pork meat which found Ireland to have the worst record of residues within the European Union. This week's ruling in the Belfast Coroner's Court which linked the new and fatal strain of nvCJD to BSE for the first time must also drain public confidence.
The new board will not provide a panacea, but it does, at the very least, herald one significant advance it chips away at the symbiotic relationship between the Department of Agriculture and the farm lobby which has helped to undermine public confidence The board will report - not to the Department of Agriculture - but to the Department of Health.
This, in itself, represents a significant acknowledgment by Government. Consumer groups and retailers (most notably Senator Fergal Quinn of Superquinn) have long pointed to the contradiction inherent in the Department's dual role as the promoter of the interests of food producers on the one hand and of consumers and the public in general on the other. The Department's response to the report on antibiotic levels in pork, which raised such serious public health issues, speaks volumes; it now appears that the industry was alerted to the damning nature of the report but there was not a whisper to the consumer through the media.
It is to be hoped that yesterday's decision to make the new board accountable to the Department of Health indicates a change of direction in which the voice of the consumer will carry real weight. The fact that the board will be able to commission independent experts and that its recommendations will be binding is to be welcomed.
But the signs are not entirely hopeful. The Department of Agriculture will retain responsibility for the monitoring and regulation of the food industry on the farm and at factory level. It will retain responsibility, through Bord Bia, for the development of the food industry. And, with the promised legislation still pending, it is difficult to assess whether the new Food Safety Board will have the investigative edge that is required.
The tragedy is that it has come to this; that a new agency is required to ensure that the plethora of State agencies, already charged with responsibility for public health, are actually doing their job. There is as one opposition politician observed last night a strong sense that the policeman are policing themselves, that a new layer of bureaucracy has been added to little overall effect.
But the Government's task now is to ensure that the establishment of the board is more than a public relations exercise to pre empt today's launch of a Fianna Fail policy document on food safety. If it really wants to reassure the public, the Government must demonstrate that it is truly ready to separate from film agriculture and the interests of consumers and the public from those of the producers.