Inspections underway, starting soon or paused

Non-farm Inspections

Inspections / investigations currently underway include:

NIEA

• Any reported incidents where there is a risk to human health or serious risk to the environment;
• Incidents of fly tipping assessed as having the potential to be a high or medium risk;
• Administrative inspections of waste movements;
• Regulation of NI Water in relation to drinking water quality;
• Regulation of private water supply sites through the risk management process;
• Targeted surveillance and inspections in identified higher risk locations with the potential to impact on drinking water supplies;
• Compliance sampling for the construction of the A6;
• Investigation of significant water pollution incidents;
• Incidents of a serious nature relating to dangerous wild animals, wildlife crime, and invasive species and damage to protected sites.

Marine and Fisheries

• Satellite fishing vessel monitoring and vessel logging in harbours;
• Live fish movement certification scheme;
• Inspections of glass eel imports;
• Potential breaches of marine licenses;
• Inspection of marine protected sites;
• Response to medium or high severity fish kills;
• Logging vessels in harbours to verify lost fishing opportunity;
• Recreational fisheries inspections;
• Public angling estate inspections;

VSAHG

• Animal by-products establishment inspections (renderers etc);
• Artificial Reproduction Controls and inspections
• National Residue Control plan sampling for meat, milk and eggs;
• Sampling of C1 seed for certification;
• Inspections on raw cow drinking milk producers;
• Reactive follow up work to antibiotic failures;
• Collection of NI radioactivity surveillance plan samples by milk processors;
• Inspection and sampling of imported animal feeds
• Meat official controls;
• Beef and Pork carcase classification checks;
• Beef labelling checks;
• Egg Marketing Inspections;
• Risk based sanitary and phytosanitary portal inspections;
• Animal welfare including market and point of departure checks;
• Dairy inspections;
• Animal feed inspections, eg mills.

Forestry

• Essential forestry regulation inspections;
• Payment related forestry grant scheme inspections;
• Plant health inspections and regulatory response to serious pest threats in high risk import trade and outbreaks;

Inspections / investigations starting soon include:

NIEA

• Pollution Prevention and Control inspections;
• Control of Major Accidents and Hazards (COMAH) inspections;
• Some visits to support the determination of discharge consents;
• Programme of waste compliance monitoring;
• Routine inspection of waste industry sites;
• Routine Water Regulation inspections;
• Planned routine audits of NI Water sites;
• Routine inspections of private waste water discharges, abstractions and impoundment sites and compliance sampling for industrial consents;
• Compliance sampling for industrial consents;
• Routine monitoring of private water supplies;

Forestry

• Programme of Afforestation inspections;

VSAHG

• Food Business Operator & Third Country compliance audits in abattoirs and meat cutting plants;
• Animal welfare establishment inspections;
• Export Assembly Centre audits.

Routine inspections / investigations with continued pause include:

NIEA

• Radioactive substances inspections;
• Reports concerning alleged illegal waste disposal which have been assessed as low level and low risk.
• Routine inspections of waste water treatment works and waste water pumping stations (pending resolution of PPE / risk assessment due to aerosols)
• Routine oil and pesticide storage checks on industrial premises;

• Routine zoo and wildlife licence inspections;

Marine and Fisheries

• Routine inspections of fishing vessels at sea;
• Routine inspections relating to low severity fish kills;
• Investigations into low level reports of illegal fishing;

VSAHG

• Non-statutory RISK scheme sampling;

Forestry

• Low risk non-essential plant health, produce quality and pest inspections;

Farm Inspections

Inspections / investigations currently underway include:

• Any reported incidents where there is a risk to human health or serious risk to the environment, including high risk or high impact waste pollution or offending, or high or medium severity water pollution incidents;

EU Area Based Scheme Inspections

• Environmental Farming Scheme pre-approval checks;
• Young Farmer (YF) Scheme interviews (2019);
• Client Referral (CR1) checks;
• Cross compliance whistle blower reports.

VSAHG

• National Control programmes – Zoonoses & Residues;
• New herd or flock number applications;
• Scrapie monitored scheme application visits;
• NI Poultry Health Assurance Scheme visits;
• Brucellosis – Herd surveillance;
• Bovine TB surveillance – Herd testing, interferon gamma testing and TB breakdown mapping visits;
• Post import testing - includes Bluetongue and Maedi-Visna;
• Dairy farm inspections;
• Egg marketing Inspections;
• Sheep and cattle identification inspections

Inspections / investigations starting soon include:

NIEA

• Cross compliance inspections SMR 1 (nitrates and phosphates) at a reduced rate;
• Cross compliance inspections SMR2 and SMR3 ( Wild Birds and Semi –Natural Habitats respectively) at a reduced rate and where there can be continued adherence to social distancing requirements;

EU Area Based Schemes

• Full Environmental Farming Scheme inspections;
• Rapid Field Visits (RFVs) for the Basic Payment Scheme;
• New Business ID inspections;

VSAHG

• Other Animal Disease Surveillance, eg Sheep, goat & poultry survey, Enzootic Bovine Leukosis etc;
• Primary production hygiene inspections ;
• Scrapie Audits.

Routine inspections / investigations with continued pause include:

EU Area Based Schemes Inspections

• Hedge Mitigation;
• Young Farmer Scheme Interviews (2020);

VSAHG

• Brucellosis abattoir surveillance;
• Aujezsky’s disease surveillance.