Independent Ireland MEP Ciarán Mullooly has called on Minister for Agriculture Martin Heydon to get the ball rolling on a system of mandatory beef country of origin labelling on all ready-made meals sold in the EU.

A letter addressed to Minister Heydon from Mullooly states that it was a derogation from existing country of origin labelling requirements that allowed beef imported from non-EU countries to bear the origin: non-EU or slaughtered in [country name] identifiers.

“This measure was introduced 26 years ago in the exceptional circumstances following the BSE crisis to facilitate imports from countries that did not operate EU-equivalent traceability systems,” Mullooly said in the letter.

“It was never intended to be a permanent feature of EU law.”

The call follows the decision of EU member states to provisionally drop Brazil from the list of countries deemed eligible to export meat and animal products to the EU from September 2026.

Mullooly stated this week that he had met with former chair of the European Food Safety Authority Professor Patrick Wall on this issue and that the ex-food safety official had claimed that there is no means by which Brazil could be re-instated on the list before this September deadline.

A statement from Mullooly attributed the following comments to Professor Wall: “The Brazilian authorities now have three months to get their act together and I don’t believe this will be possible.”

“The animals being brought to slaughter this coming September will be two years old. We can’t go back two years and retrospectively get reliable traceability.

“They might start in September of this year going forward, but they won’t be able to go back two years.”

The ramping up of the midlands-north-west MEP’s statements on Brazilian beef follows a row he had with senators last month over claims that Brazilian beef had been used in meals provided to schools, hospitals and nursing homes.

Mullooly later clarified to senators that he had just been asking questions as to the origin of any beef provided to these premises.