There should be a Cabinet post of minister for food with an "urban woman" at the helm to represent consumers, according to a leading member of the Consumers' Association of Ireland.
Mr Peter Dargan was responding to the results of a Food Safety Authority of Ireland audit which found almost a quarter of abattoirs in the State had supplied beef containing BSE specified risk material.
"My solution is a food minister who would look at food from the customer's point of view. It should be a woman in an urban centre. Women buy 75 per cent of food," said Mr Dargan, a member of the association's executive council.
He said the cabinet responsibilities of agriculture and food should be separated. If the minister for food was an urban dweller, she would not be lobbied by farmers.
Ms Celine Murrin, food researcher with the Consumers' Association, said: "We have been in contact with the Department of Agriculture and we were assured inspections were in place and people were complying with the regulations.
"Fortunately, the Food Safety Authority has been able to disclose this kind of information. We don't have the resources to carry out inspections ourselves, and consumers have to rely on these organisations."
The Association of Craft Butchers of Ireland said yesterday the FSA report did not imply any threat to public health. Its chief executive, Mr Pat Brady, said the report had cast "an unwelcome spotlight on the abject failure of the Department of Agriculture and Food to achieve compliance with the provisions of the Abattoirs Act, which has been in force since 1988."
He said butchers believed the Department of Agriculture and Health was seeking to destroy small abattoirs despite their outstanding record in food safety, quality and traceability.
A Department of Agriculture Food and Rural Development spokesman last night expressed "outright astonishment and dismay" at the comments made by the Association of Craft Butchers.
The abattoirs represented by the association were controlled by the local authorities on a day-to-day basis and not by the department, he said.