Skibbereen pub among 24 issued with Enforcement Orders
The total consisted of 21 Closure Orders and two Prohibition Orders. These were served on food businesses for breaches of food safety legislation including The Paragon pub on Skibbereen’s Main Street in County Cork, where the Closure Order applied to all activities with the exception of service of hot and cold drinks and prepackaged ready-to-eat snacks).
Some of the reasons for the 23 Enforcement Orders included: evidence of rats in a premises; a dead mouse was found in a trap in a kitchen; the presence of mouse-droppings in bar area; substantial pigeon faeces present on the wash basin in a food packing area, paper towel dispenser, container of honey and shelving unit; a live rodent was observed running in the direction of the food storage and equipment washing area; evidence of cockroaches was found throughout a kitchen; dead cockroaches were found behind a service fridge, staff toilet, beside the grease trap and in a container holding bottles of sauces; raw chicken and raw chicken juices directly contaminating ready-to-eat foods; failure to comply with Improvement Notices; excessive build-up of dirt and food residue on wall and floor surfaces; a dishwasher had dirty water and a large accumulation of foodstuffs; the presence of cobwebs, spiders and insects such as woodlouse were present throughout a kitchen; the inside of an ice-machine coated with a dried-on grey/white substance; high levels of E coli and coliforms were found in drinking water and ice samples taken from a premises and raw sewage was found on the floor of a customer toilet.
Just a few years ago Ireland ranked in joint top place with Canada for food safety performance among 16 OECD countries surveyed by the Conference Board of Canada’s Centre for Food in collaboration with the University of Guelph’s Food Institute.
The 2015 report measured and ranked Canada’s food safety performance against that of 16 peer OECD countries including Australia, France, Germany, the UK and the US and provided an overall world ranking of food safety performance.