Officials from the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine (DAFM) carried out just under 70,000 inspections on food consignments imported to this country in 2024.

In a parliamentary question, Offaly TD Carol Nolan asked Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine, Martin Heydon, what guarantees he could provide that imported food products meet the same environmental, welfare, and safety standards required of Irish farmers.

In response, Minister Heydon said: "The European Single Market is based on a concept of a single set of rules applying to the production of food, so that food placed on the European market...meets EU requirements to protect food safety, animal and plant health, and animal welfare standards.

Minister Heydon said this applies to food that is put on the shelves within a member state; traded between member states; imported into the EU; or exported from the EU.

"To ensure consistency in application of requirements, rules are laid down in a series of European regulations... European regulations apply directly to member states and they place legal responsibilities on businesses that apply from the date of implementation of the regulation," he said.

According to the minister, Ireland complies with these regulations through four border control posts (BCPs) operated by DAFM.

These four posts are Dublin Airport, Dublin Port, Rosslare EuroPort and Shannon Airport, where consignments undergo documentary, identity, and physical inspections to confirm that they are in compliance with EU legislation, Minister Heydon said.

Consignments found not to be in compliance with the legal requirements are rejected and either destroyed or re-exported to the country of origin.

"In 2024, my officials carried out a total of 69,590 import controls across our four BCPs with 86% of these undertaken at Dublin Port," the minister confirmed.

Most of the food consignments were imported from Britain.

The minister said that the overall levels of non-compliance detected at Irish BCPs was low, at less than 0.5% of inspected consignments.

This is reflected by the fact that the UK is only recently departed from the EU and thereby familiar with EU standards, Minister Heydon said.