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.
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