THE AGRICULTURE Committee of the Northern Ireland Assembly met in a Dublin hotel yesterday amid recriminations that it had been snubbed by senior officials from the South’s Department of Agriculture.
Committee chairman Ian Paisley jnr said members and staff had travelled to Dublin to take evidence from officials of the Department of Agriculture and the Food Safety Authority of Ireland, as part of its investigation into last December’s discovery of potentially carcinogenic dioxins in pig meat.
But, he said, “as chairman I have to say that I am very disappointed that officials of the Department of Agriculture have chosen not to appear today”.
The meeting in Dublin was, he said, an attempt to facilitate the officials and contacts from last week had indicated there would not be a problem with representatives of the Department of Agriculture attending.
He said he understood there was “more than one official from the department who could have appeared. I would have liked the department to come, they haven’t decided to do that”.
Sinn Féin’s Pat Doherty said he felt “particularly bad that we have come to Dublin and the Department has run away”.
The committee members were told by its secretariat that officials of the department had suggested they might travel to Northern Ireland on October 13th, but Mr Paisley said this might interfere with the committee’s timetable to gather evidence and present a report into events which he pointed out had happened last year.
