FSAI policy on anonymous food complaints to the Advice Line
The Food Safety Authority of Ireland (FSAI) Advice Line can be contacted by telephone, e-mail, letter, the FSAI website or in person, to make a complaint about hygiene standards in a food premises, to complain about a food product or to report suspected food poisoning. Such complaints are investigated by inspectors in an official agency* working on behalf of the FSAI. The complainant’s name and contact telephone number are required to enable follow-up by the inspector investigating the complaint. All details provided by the complainant are fully confidential.
It is the FSAI’s policy to pass on all food complaints to the relevant official agency for investigation, as long as sufficient information and contact details have been supplied. However, where the complainant declines to provide basic contact details such as his/her name and telephone number, the complaint will be forwarded by the FSAI to the relevant official agency, but it is then at the discretion of the official agency as to how to proceed. Anonymous complaints may not be followed up.
If a person does not wish to give his/her name and contact details to a staff member of the FSAI, but wishes to contact an official agency directly, he/she will be given the contact details of the relevant agency.
The FSAI will maintain a record of an anonymous complaint.
*The official agencies are: the Health Service Executive; the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine; the local authorities; the Sea-Fisheries Protection Authority.