The restaurant at Carnew Mart has been shut down for breaches of food safety legislation.

The Food Safety Authority of Ireland (FSAI) announced that the Wicklow food venue was one of eight businesses in the country issued with closure orders during the month of October.

Enforcement orders are issued by environmental health officers in the Health Service Executive (HSE), veterinary inspectors in the Department of Agriculture and sea fisheries protection officers in the Sea-Fisheries Protection Authority.

FSAI chief executive Dr Pamela Byrne said that food businesses must have adequate pest control systems in place, especially during this particularly busy time of year leading up to Christmas.

“Inadequate pest control measures, filthy premises and unsafe food storage are once again the primary reasons for the enforcement orders served in October,” she said.

“With the busy Christmas period nearly upon us, food businesses must be especially vigilant to ensure compliance with the law and to protect the health of their customers.”

Report

In the report by the HSE, the inspector said that the Carnew Mart restaurant had a current rodent infestation in its main kitchen food preparation area and was not maintained in a clean condition.

There was evidence of a dead rodent and droppings throughout the main kitchen. The inspector said that food produced in the premises posed a “grave and immediate risk to public health”.

The report also said that the floor, walls and wall-to-floor junctions were unclean, with a buildup of food and debris evident behind and below equipment.

Reasons

The Carnew Mart canteen was one of 16 businesses to be handed an enforcement order under the FSAI Act 1998.

The FSAI has cited presence of fruit and drain flies; live maggots on old food residue; no wash hand basin with an inaccessible wash hand basin; lack of adequate food storage and contamination prevention procedures; and persistent and historical failure to comply with food law as some of the other reasons that businesses were handed enforcement orders last month.

“A high number of the enforcement orders were associated with issues related to pests, as well as failures to maintain adequate cleaning,” Dr Byrne added.

"These issues are all preventable and food businesses must ensure that they always adhere to a high standard of food safety and hygiene.”