Brendan Smith (Cavan-Monaghan, Fianna Fail)

No. The facility was due to be inspected in late November or early December of this year. It is important to make sure that the House is clear on this, as there may have been some misinformation in the public domain in this regard. In accordance with EU legislation, the Department's national feed inspection programme is part of the overall integrated annual control plan for this country. A specially trained unit in the Department is devoted to feed inspections. The Department takes 1,800 samples per annum from the complete range of feed materials. A total of 7,200 laboratory analyses are carried out. That is done. Our control programme was audited in May 2008 within the overall framework of the EU Food and Veterinary Office. Our systems, inspections and work are audited by the office on an annual basis. The last audit report, which relates to May of this year, commented favourably on the systems and workings of the Department's programme. It mentioned that the residue programme has noted a continual decline in the presence of residue in Irish produce. This risk-based sampling involves taking over 30,000 samples from across the food chain and testing them for over 200 possible contaminants. The frequency and geographical distribution of the samples taken is laid down in the regulations that come under the EU framework. The regulations are rigidly followed by the Department as part of an EU-approved programme that has been audited and favourably reported on by the European Union.

See this speech in context