Friday, 14 February 2025
The Food Safety Authority of Ireland (FSAI) today published its Audit of the Effectiveness of Official Controls by the Sea-Fisheries Protection Authority at Ready-To-Eat Fishery Products Establishments. The FSAI has overall responsibility for the enforcement of food law in Ireland. To assess the delivery of official controls by official agencies, the FSAI conducts an annual risk-based audit programme. These audits are designed to evaluate the effectiveness and appropriateness of the official controls implemented by agencies in relation to food law, service contracts, and the Multi-Annual National Control Plan requirements.
This audit was undertaken as part of the FSAI’s planned programme of audits in 2024. It started in the Sea-Fisheries Protection Authority (SFPA) headquarters in Clonakilty, Cork, and was followed by visits to three port offices. A total of 16 food business establishments across 5 port regions were selected to assess the delivery and effectiveness of official controls, as well as the level of compliance with food law.
The audit covered the organisation, planning, implementation, and review of official controls within the SFPA at national and regional levels in relation to ready-to-eat fishery products establishments in order to confirm compliance with food law, service contract requirements and conformance with the SFPA’s own documented procedures.
The audit confirmed that the SFPA has an organised approach to coordinating, planning, and prioritising official controls, with good communication between central and regional levels. The SFPA's annual food safety control plan outlines the measures for establishments under its supervision, including recording and reporting requirements. Guidance for sea fisheries protection officers (SFPOs) is provided in documented procedures, though some issues were noted, such as references to revoked legislation in the guidance, use of outdated versions of documents by some SFPOs, and some incomplete records. The audit team noted that in most of the food businesses visited, a satisfactory level of compliance with food law was observed. The monitoring of inspections centrally was predominantly quantitative rather than qualitative with the focus on achieving targets set for the risk category. An overall view of the content of the inspection reports was not available centrally to indicate trends or identify common issues across regions. The majority of SFPA inspections were carried out with prior notice, despite the requirement in the official controls legislation and repeated in the SFPA food safety control plan, that official controls should be performed without prior notice, except where such notice is necessary and duly justified. The audit team considered that such a high rate of prior notice inspections could negatively impact the effectiveness of official controls.
The audit concludes that a more qualitative approach should be incorporated into the review process, and reliance on announced inspections limits the effectiveness of the control system. The report makes reference to findings requiring corrective action, some of which have been addressed by the SFPA subsequent to the audit.
