Any companies involved in the production of beef burgers containing horse meat will be named, Minister for Agriculture Simon Coveney said this evening.
As the fallout from the controversy continued, Mr Coveney said the investigation into the production of contaminated beef burgers was focusing on imported ingredients.
"As far as I can see to date, there is no linkage between some of the companies that have sold product in...in terms of ownership of companies," he said.
The Minister was replying in the Dáil this afternoon to Sinn Féin agriculture spokesman Martin Ferris, who asked if any of the companies involved were owned by beef baron Larry Goodman. Mr Ferris said it was very important that the companies from the Netherlands and Spain be named.
"Were any of those companies owned by Larry Goodman and were any of the companies that distributed here owned by Larry Goodman?", he added.
A study by the Food Safety Authority of Ireland (FSAI) found the presence of horse DNA in more than a third of the beef burger products it tested.
Products from the Netherlands and Spain added to processed burgers “seem to be the source” of the horse meat contamination, Mr Coveney said today. The burger products were on sale in Tesco, Dunnes Stores, Lidl, Aldi and Iceland. It found pig DNA in 85 per cent of burgers tested.
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