Allegations that restaurants and hotels in Ireland are using Brazilian beef and selling it as Irish were made yesterday at the Joint Oireachtas Agriculture Committee in the Dáil.
The committee had been dealing with a submission from the Irish Farmers Association (IFA) calling for a ban on the import of Brazilian beef because it could bring foot-and-mouth disease into Ireland.
During the two-hour submission a number of deputies and Senators claimed that because the imported beef cost 50 per cent less, Brazilian beef was being used in catering.
The chairman of the committee, Johnny Brady, asked the IFA delegation if it had any proof this was happening at a time when this beef caused a risk to the Irish industry.
However, Kevin Kinsella of the IFA said although it monitored the situation and had taken DNA sampling which showed Brazilian beef was being used in catering, this was an issue for the Food Safety Authority (FSA).
"It is up to the FSA to inspect and implement the regulations that are in place, and I think they have failed to do this properly," said Mr Kinsella, who was part of an IFA delegation to Brazil which found a large number of irregularities there.
IFA president Pádraig Walshe said the kind of conditions and lack of controls which had been found in Brazil by the IFA team pointed to serious difficulties there.
"In fact, if the Department of Agriculture found the Brazilian failures on an Irish farm, the animals would be destroyed and removed from the food chain; the farmer could face court proceedings, and a possible jail sentence."
He said the EU Food and Veterinary Report (FVO) on controls covering foot-and-mouth disease, tagging of animals and in processing vindicated the IFA's call for a total ban on all Brazilian imports into Europe.
He said a further FVO report, due to be presented to the European Commission this week, would show there was no great improvement since the first mission to Brazil earlier in the year.
Michael Creed, Fine Gael's agriculture spokesman, pressed the committee to support the IFA call for an outright ban.
However, Mr Brady said the committee should work together with the Minister, the farm organisations and the industry here to protect the country from foot-and-mouth disease even if that included a ban.
This was agreed, and it was also decided to invite the Minister for Agriculture, Mary Coughlan, to attend a session of the committee as soon as possible.