The Food Safety Authority of Ireland has authorised officers who have extensive powers to enter and inspect food premises, to secure these premises for later inspection, to inspect and, if necessary remove records. These officers may take samples of food or related materials and have these samples analysed and it is an offence for any person to obstruct/deny entry or confront an officer in carrying out this duty.
The authorised officers are the staff of the various agencies involved in food safety, including Environmental Health Officers from the Health Service Executive (HSE).
Food surveillance is conducted by the relevant Authorities to:
- Support food inspection activities.
- Ensure compliance with legal limits for microorganisms and chemical contaminants in food.
- Ensure foods comply with legal restrictions on the use of certain ingredients and processing technologies.
- Ensure the authenticity of certain foods.
- Provide data for risk assessment and risk management activities.
- Identify the pathogens found in foodstuffs for the purpose of monitoring trends and establishing public health priorities for control and prevention strategies.
- Remove contaminated products from the market.
- Detect outbreaks and assist with their investigation.
Surveillance involves the sampling and testing of foods. This can be done in many ways:
- Food samples are taken by food law enforcement officers and sent to food control laboratories funded by the State.
- Samples can be taken at the time of inspection of a food business or taken randomly at retail or wholesale level.
- Samples can also be taken on foot of a food complaint or to support an outbreak investigation.
The food control laboratories work to rigorous standards and possess the latest analytical equipment. The results of these tests are communicated back to the enforcement officer, who takes appropriate action, and also to the FSAI who formulates a national picture of food controls and communicates this to the European Commission.
In certain circumstances the FSAI also organises specific surveillance projects. These are focused on specific foodstuffs, specific tests and specific contaminants. Samples are taken by the food law enforcement officers and at other times samples are taken by the FSAI itself. Where possible these samples are tested in the food control laboratories but where necessary the testing is conducted in accredited third-party laboratories.