Jackie Cahill (Tipperary, Fianna Fail)
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199. To ask the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine the number of fertiliser quality checks carried-out by his Department; the procedures followed for same; the results of the tests carried-out to date in 2022; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [56842/22]

Charlie McConalogue (Donegal, Fianna Fail)
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The Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine is the authority responsible for carrying out market surveillance for fertilisers in Ireland.

As part of the risk-based control programme, in 2022 a total of 150 samples were taken at manufacturers’ premises and the laboratory results are available for 100 samples to date. The remaining results are expected shortly.

Of the results available to date, 326 individual analyses were performed for fertilisers and an out-of-tolerance was recorded for 9.5 % of these. Tolerance for individual parameters range from 0.4 - 1.1% Fertiliser manufacturers were informed of all out-of-tolerance results and asked to investigate the root cause. All out-of-tolerance results are followed up with the operator responsible and required the root cause of the non-compliance to be identified.

The Department controls are updated to ensure samples are taken from those operators who had non-compliant results in the following year's programme.