Brendan Griffin (Kerry South, Fine Gael)
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Question 159: To ask the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine his views on a matter (details supplied) regarding licensed fish farms; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [7024/12]

Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael)
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There are 39 aquaculture marine based finfish licences in Ireland.

All stocks of salmon and trout on every farm are inspected by the Marine Institute on 14 occasions throughout the year when stock are present. Sea lice inspections take place monthly, with two inspections taking place each month during March, April and May. One inspection is carried out for the December-January period. Notices to carry out sea lice treatment are issued when observed levels of infestation reach a specified treatment trigger level. These levels are set at a low level by international standards.

During the Dec 2011-Jan 2012 period elevated sea lice levels were recorded at 4 sites.

In these cases notices to carry out lice treatments have been issued to the operators and the sites in question are subject to follow up inspections by the Marine Institute to assess the efficacy of the treatments applied.

The lice monitoring and control programme in place in Ireland is comprehensive and transparent with all farms inspected 14 times per annum by independent inspectors from the Marine Institute, acting on behalf of my Department. The results are circulated to all interested parties monthly and published annually. The Irish monitoring and control programme is unique in that it is completely independent of industry and the full results are published. It is comprehensive in that all farms and all sites are inspected. The monitoring and control programme in Ireland is more advanced than that in any other jurisdiction and has been acknowledged by the Environment Directorate (DG Environment) of the EU Commission as representing international best practice.