The Food Safety Authority of Ireland (FSAI) faced a slew of questions around food labelling from TDs at last Wednesday’s Oireachtas agriculture committee.

A number of products from Irish supermarket shelves were presented to the authority which were labelled as Irish but came from countries like Kenya, Spain and Scotland.

Examples included tomatoes from Spain that were labelled as Irish tomatoes on the vine and carrots from Scotland labelled as ‘Supervalu Irish carrots’.

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The most egregious example, according to Aontú TD Paul Lawless from Mayo, which was just off the shelves was a Supervalu Irish herbs Thai-style curry.

“It proudly pictures an Irish farmer from north Dublin, Mr Flynn, with a lovely smile on his face. You look at the origin and it says Kenya and Spain. There is a litany of food labelling abuse happening. Let us call it what it is,” deputy Lawless said.

Fine Gael TD Willie Aird for Laois asked the FSAI to “up their game” in relation to labelling checks in retail products.

“I am very sorry to Irish consumers for what is happening at the moment. I am a food producer. I can see all the lovely Irish people working hard in the fields. People are busy when they are shopping and it is only when they go home that they realise what has happened,” Aird said.

Greg Dempsey, CEO of the FSAI, revealed to the committee that over 7,000 checks in respect of labelling in retail products were conducted.

The number of non-compliances in total last year was just over 1,000, he said.

“That includes non-compliances which would be relatively modest, for example, the board in a shop not being prominent. Our understanding is that the majority are minor,” Dempsey told the committee.

The difference, he said, between a major and a minor non-compliance would be where there is “wilful attempts to deceive customers”, Dempsey added.