The Food Safety Authority of Ireland (FSAI) published a report on Tuesday 31 May detailing non-compliance with food safety standards.

Traceability and meat labelling issues were among the issues identified in the audit.

Five meat cutting and/or processing establishments and three slaughterhouses that are under the supervision of the Department of Agriculture were audited by the FSAI.

In total, the audit comprised of 27 unannounced on-site inspections of individual food business establishments, of which the aforementioned eight enterprises were included in.

Non-compliance with food law was detected in 24 out of 27 establishments audited and in 14, the non-compliance was considered "serious".

One multi-species cutting and processing establishment mis-described beef as lamb, according to the report.

Plants

There were 10 standalone meat cutting and/or processing establishments in total, with the other four supervised by local authorities.

The total slaughterhouses amounted to five; three of these processed red meat and two processed poultry meat.

The FSAI has overall responsibility for the enforcement of food law in Ireland, which is mainly with official agencies.

The three official agencies responsible for supervising establishments within the scope of this audit were the HSE, the Department of Agriculture and local authorities.

The audit led to 10 formal enforcement actions by the food inspectorate or the FSAI against six food business operators.

Recommendations

Some 14 recommendations were also made to strengthen compliance with food law, including instructing businesses to ensure that foods are labelled accurately.

FSAI CEO Pamela Byrne said: "While good practices were observed in some of the food businesses, disappointingly this audit found that there was a varying degree of compliance by food businesses with meat labelling and traceability requirements."

Byrne added that the FSAI is continuing to work closely with the food inspectorate to explore opportunities to strengthen compliance with food law.

"We urge food businesses to ensure they are meeting their food safety legal requirements," she said.