A memo from a staff union at Ireland’s key fisheries regulatory body contains damning allegations on the screening of crab exports to China.
In a memo compiled by staff union Fórsa, the Sea Fisheries Protection Authority (SFPA) is claiming that crab with levels of cadmium above the official Chinese limits were approved for shipment to China. The approval was granted even though SFPA tests clearly showed excess traces of cadmium, a natural element that occurs naturally in wild crabs, but which has been traced to higher rates of lung, prostate, kidney, and pancreatic cancer.
The officers were directed by management to continue to certify the China-bound crab shipments based on the reports supplied by the fishing companies, according to the memo.
“Sea fishery protection officers find themselves in a position where the Authority is aware that the sample results provided by industry to support the certification of processed crab lack credibility,” the memo stated.
A 56-page document submitted by Fórsa to accounting firm PWC – currently completing a review of SFPA – contains complaints about management procedures and undue influence from the Agriculture Ministry, which was involved in setting up the body in 2007. Details of the memo were also reported in the Sunday Business Post.
The SFPA was set up as an independent regulator after persistent complaints by the European Union to the Irish government over non-enforcement of illegal fishing laws.
China has become a major buyer for Irish crabs, lobsters and oysters. Ireland’s food exports promotion agency Bord Bia has put a concerted effort into the promotion of Irish seafood in China.
Ireland shipped EUR 47 million (USD 52.2 million) worth of seafood products to China in 2018, up by 68 percent year on year. That’s about one third of the value of shipments to France, the top buyer of Irish seafood last year.
There’s also a note in the Fórsa memo about the EUR 62,000 (USD 69,000) paid by the SFPA to Harvard University professor Malcolm Sparrow for workshops.
Photo courtesy of Rolf G Wackenberg/Shutterstock
