Summary Report on 2024 Residue Monitoring of Irish Farmed Finfish & Border Control Post Fishery Product Testing

On behalf of the Department of Agriculture, Food and Marine (DAFM), the Marine Institute carries out monitoring of chemical residues in finfish for aquaculture sector. This monitoring is set out in the annual National Residue Control Plan, which is approved by the European Commission, and is an important component of the DAFM food safety controls and is implemented under a service contract with the Food Safety Authority of Ireland. For the aquaculture sector, the Sea Fisheries Protection Authority (SFPA) with technical support from the MI is responsible for residue controls on farmed finfish. Since 1999, the Marine Institute has implemented the National Residues Monitoring Programme for aquaculture and in 2024, in excess of 1,982 tests and a total of 12,882 measurements were carried out on 92 samples of farmed finfish for a range of residues of pharmacologically active substances. Implementation of the Aquaculture 2024 risk-based control plan for production (Plan 1) involves taking samples at both farm and processing plant: 46 target samples taken at harvest: 36 farmed salmon and 10 freshwater trout. 46 target samples were taken at other stages of production: 36 salmon smolts and 10 freshwater trout. All 2024 samples were compliant. For target sampling of farmed fish, a summary table of the residue results from 2023 - 2024 is outlined in Table 1. Overall, the outcome for aquaculture remains one of consistently low occurrence of residues in farmed finfish, with no non-compliant target residues results for the period 2006-2014, 0.11% and 0.10% non-compliant target residues results in 2015 and 2016 respectively and no non-compliant target results for the period 2017 to 2024.

URI

http://hdl.handle.net/10793/2052

Citation

Glynn, D., McGovern, E., Reilly, N., Kelly, C., Moffat, R. Kaur, N., Toomey, M. and Gordon, E. (2025). Summary Report on 2024 Residue Monitoring of Irish Farmed Finfish & Border Control Post Fishery Product Testing. Marine Institute, Ireland