The claim from Independent Ireland’s Ciarán Mullooly that school meals contain Brazilian beef sparked a major row in Seanad Éireann, as the MEP was pushed to withdraw the statement by senators who said Irish companies are putting Irish beef in the meals.

The conflagration came on Wednesday when Mullooly was accused of scaremongering parents by alleging Brazilian beef was in meals delivered to schools as he and other midlands-northwest MEPs addressed the house.

“On Brazilian beef, many of us raised concerns on public health and food safety grounds and recent developments have shown that these concerns were legitimate,” the MEP said.

“Why should we sit by in a calm and relaxed basis while Brazilian beef comes [in] especially in pre-packed meals into our schools with a question mark over it. And it is not scaremongering.”

Mullooly would later clarify in the debate that his concerns centred on frozen beef imported from the UK, saying that he was just “asking questions” as to the provenance of these supplies.

Fianna Fáil MEP Barry Cowen was the first to seize on the statement by asking: “Is Mr Mullooly saying beef is going into schools? That is dangerous.”

Cowen would later call for Mullooly to present any evidence he holds on his claims.

Commissioner meeting

Mullooly said that a meeting he held with European Commissioner for Food Safety Olivér Várhelyi heard the official acknowledge concern over the levels of food safety checks with goods imported from UK.

“This is the situation. The Commissioner stands over the audits that are in place on European countries,” Mullooly responded.

“The Commissioner said to me: ‘The issue of pre-packed meals coming from the UK is a major problem.’ Those are his words,” Mullooly responded, adding that “nursing homes and hospitals” were also receiving ready-packed meals from the UK containing poorly audited which he suggested could be from Brazil.

Fianna Fáil senator Joe Flaherty weighed in on the debate by saying that there are “four significant school lunch companies in Co Longford, which can all attest to where their food comes from” and stating that “scaremongering has no place in the European Parliament and no place in this house”.

Further pressure to withdraw the claim that Brazilian meat lands at Irish school gates came from Fine Gael’s senator in Longford Pádraic Brady, who said that he “knows firsthand that the meat that goes into our school meals comes from local produce”.

“Local farmers are delivering into local abattoirs that are supplying these businesses,” Brady commented.

The Fine Gael senator was among those to call on Mullooly to clarify details of his exit package with RTÉ, for which he served as a broadcaster, and to withdrawn claims made in the European Parliament during this month's fuel protests that Government had sent "tanks" on to the streets.