Purpose -This paper aims to provide a focused overview of two dioxin incidents, with particular emphasis on regulatory successes and failures and their respective causes. The paper seeks to adopt a comparative approach to the case studies, with considerable use made of primary sources such as parliamentary debate, government reports and EC legislation. Design/methodology/approach -The paper is a review of the strengths and weaknesses in the management of the Belgian and Irish dioxin contanimation incidents. Findings -It is concluded that open, transparent and decisive risk management, based on robust risk assessment, is paramount in ensuring confidence in both the food supply chain and, in the feed and food safety regulatory process. It is also concluded that the 2008 Irish dioxin incident tested the reforms prompted by previous food scares. Practical implications -It is important that the lessons from these two incidents are learnt if they are not to be repeated in other jurisdictions. Originality/value -This is the first academic study of the 2008 Irish dioxin incident, one of the most significant recent food scares in the European Communities. The incident emphasises the vital role of open, transparent and decisive decision making in managing risk. In addition, through a comparative analysis of the Belgian and Irish incidents, the utility of the reforms prompted by previous food scares is demonstrated. In particular, the study highlights the important role played by the European Food Safety Authority in one of its first major tests as a risk assessor and risk communicator.

The 2008 contamination of Irish pork with dioxins was one of the most significant recent food safety incidents in the European Union (EU). While the contamination posed no real risk to public health, it tested the efficacy of EU food safety regulation and governance which has been considerably overhauled in the past decade. The exchange of risk information through networks of regulators is an important element of the EU food safety risk management framework. Networks are a much-lauded form of new governance, though they are not without their problems. In this paper, we address the question of why governance networks can fail. We examine this issues using the case study of the 2008 Irish dioxin contamination and explore the reason for the failure to make more substantial use of networks in the governance of that incident. We hypothesize that the reason for such failure may be found in three inherent tensions which exist in the design and management of networks, namely flexibility/stability, inclusiveness/efficiency, and internal/external legitimacy. The paper concludes that by ensuring the external legitimacy of the EU's Rapid Alert System for Feed and Food (RASFF) through increased transparency of communications, the design of RASFF has stifled its internal legitimacy with regard to certain types of important information exchanges.

Case T-212/06, Bowland Dairy Products Ltd v. CommissionThe Commission, as co-ordinator of the Rapid Alert System for Food and Feed (RASFF), is not entitled to refuse the circulation of a supplementary notification made by a Member State to the system, regardless of its own reservations about the content of that notification. This is in accordance with the non-hierarchical nature of RASFF as a form of risk information exchange envisaged in Article 50 of Regulation 178/2002. However, as the Commission itself is also a member of this network it may legitimately make notifications to the system which directly conflict with notifications made by Member States (author's headnote).

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