The Government, for its part, acted on a precautionary basis in accordance with environmental best practice and established a national programme for monitoring and controlling sea lice numbers at salmon farms. This system requires that action be taken at farm level when lice levels are much lower than the lice levels that would be tolerated without treatment in Norway or other countries. This programme involves 14 visits a year by Marine Institute personnel to each fish farm. If sea lice are detected at levels in excess of the very strict trigger levels that have been set in Ireland, the farm in question is required to administer appropriate approved treatment to the fish.