Do we need a Food Whistleblower ?

Dionysius2

Would a Food Whistleblower have a future in Ireland ? Do we need to seriously consider such a move or would he/she be left 'twisting in the wind' ?
What's the downside of such a move ?

The Hill Billy

What exactly is a Food Whistleblower & what would you expect them/it to do? Do you mean a person or organisation to whom people could report underhanded activities?

Dionysius2

The Hill Billy wrote: »

What exactly is a Food Whistleblower & what would you expect them/it to do? Do you mean a person or organisation to whom people could report underhanded activities?

I'm just thinking that it's very obvious now that there are some underhand practices in regard to the production of processed foods in this country and it it seems reasonable to suggest that some kind of insider network would be a useful way to uncover a lot of it. Perhaps it would be helpful in uncovering such wrongdoing if we had some kind of agency, state or semi-state, to which a person who had knowledge of malpractices in the food production area could resort for the purpose of alerting the appropriate agencies and triggering remedial action.

Haven't really thought this through but that's roughly what I'm suggesting.
Maybe it's already there via the existing whistleblower agencies.

stevenmu

I'd imagine the FSAI would be happy for any whistleblowers to come forward to them with any safety related information. Equally, I'm sure any of the Guaranteed Irish type groups would be happy for whistleblowers to come forward for breaches of their terms and conditions.

The Hill Billy

To be honest, I think that the current 'horse meat' scandal has probably arisen because of whistle-blowing.

I understand that testing for horse DNA is not a standard test that is conducted. It would lead me to think that these test were run specifically because of a tip-off (or from investigations in other areas).

Dionysius2

The Hill Billy wrote: »

To be honest, I think that the current 'horse meat' scandal has probably arisen because of whistle-blowing.

I understand that testing for horse DNA is not a standard test that is conducted. It would lead me to think that these test were run specifically because of a tip-off (or from investigations in other areas).

And so say many of us ! The pursuit of profit making scams in the food processing area is a secret activity and as such likely to be uncovered only by someone who is able to glimpse insider practices. We may well be naive to believe that these scams can be beaten back without the availability of a robust inttelligence network to the monitors.

Blisterman

Given that Ireland was the first country to discover what has seemingly been happening in loads of countries, I'd say it's way ahead of most of them in terms of food testing and safety.