Top seafood firm fined after 219 customers fall ill
Thursday November 19 2009
AN award-winning seafood company was fined yesterday after it jeopardised the reputation of the Irish food industry by selling contaminated mussels abroad.
Bantry Bay Seafood (BBS) failed to co-operate with an investigation by the Sea Fisheries Protection Authority (SFPA), a court heard yesterday.
The probe began after complaints that 219 people in France, who ate mussels sourced from the firm, became ill. BBS was fined €4,700 but will have to pay prosecution costs of €50,000.
Last night, the SFPA said the firm had shown a total lack of regard for consumer health. SFPA executive Micheal O'Mahony said the company had jeopardised the global reputation of Irish food.
"BBS repeatedly produced unsafe food and sold it on the market over an extended period. When people got sick, instead of working with the SFPA to get the unsafe food off the market, the company obstructed our attempts to identify which products were affected and where they had been sold," he said. "The company showed complete disregard for people's health, the law of the land, and the reputation of Irish food on the marketplace."
The firm pleaded guilty at Bandon District Court to allowing mussels to reach market which had been harvested from Irish sea areas where unacceptably high levels of the naturally occurring bio-toxin, Azaspiracids (AZA), was detected.
Strict Irish and EU regulations prohibit mussels and shellfish harvested from sea areas with high AZA levels from reaching market. Consumption of seafood contaminated by AZA can result in nausea, diarrhoea, cramps and headache.
Bandon District Court heard that the firm, which employs 100 people, had allowed these mussels to be dispatched to market between July 9, 2007 and March 31, 2008. The produce was exported to France, Britain, Italy, the USA, Latvia and Romania.
In mitigation, the firm's solicitor, Frank Buttimer, said they had pleaded guilty and saved the State a trial that could have lasted for up to four weeks and have taken steps to address the issues involved and co-operated fully with the SFPA.
The judge fined the firm a total of €4,700 and allowed them three months to pay.
BBS managing director, Paul Connolly (37), pleaded guilty to a single count of failing to comply with a directive regarding a fisheries product. The judge said if he pays €1,500 to a cancer charity by next February, he will strike out the matter.
- Ralph Riegel
Irish Independent
