All those people doing the Potomac two-step in Washington, wanting more food safety inspections, ignoring the advice of former Food and Drug Administration food safety czar Davis Acheson, who said earlier this week, “there is a lot more to ensuring a food supply than writing laws,” and that “food safety is cultural,” may be interested to know that health inspectors and Department of Marine officials in Ireland carried out up to 20 routine inspections of a large fish shop freezer but failed to notice a man’s body hidden there for five years (that’s actor Frank Sivero, right, as Frank Carbone after he’s been iced in the 1990 movie, Goodfellas).

The body of 52-year-old Patrick McCormack was hidden in a bin in the walk-in freezer at the back of a fish shop in Galway after he was killed by a criminal associate.

The body was discovered in June 2007 when the fish shop owner went to tidy the large freezer ahead of an inspection by the Department of the Marine.

A 45-year-old Galway man, Edward Griffin, from Cimín Mór, Cappagh Road, Knocknacarra, is serving eight years for the manslaughter of McCormack. Griffin, who worked in the fish shop for several years, left a few months before the body was discovered.

The Central Criminal Court heard this year that Griffin and McCormack were in the drugs business but had a row which led to Griffin killing McCormack with a wheel brace.

Ali Jalilvand, owner of the Mermaid Fishmongers at Henry Street, told the inquest how he had discovered Mr McCormack’s body when he went to carry out a routine inspection. Mr Jalilvand, an Iranian, who has lived in Ireland for the past 30 years, said he became sick when he discovered the body hidden in a bin underneath boxes of frozen fish.

He said that the freezer was a large walk-in room and, questioned by Dr McLoughlin, estimated that health and marine officials had carried out 15 to 20 inspections of the freezer during the time the body was there