Specified Risk Material Order (Northern Ireland) 1997

Explanatory Note

(This note is not part of the Order.)

This Order revokes the Specified Bovine Material Order (Northern Ireland) 1997 and the Heads of Sheep and Goats Order (Northern Ireland) 1996. This Order amends and replaces the provisions of those Orders prohibiting the use of specified bovine material in feedingstuffs and cosmetic, pharmaceutical and medical products. The controls on the use of specified bovine material in food, and the provisions relating to the removal of specified bovine material from cattle and its destruction are contained in the Specified Risk Material Regulations (Northern Ireland) 1997.

The Order imposes controls on the import of class I specified risk material (defined in Article 2 by reference to the definitions of specified bovine material and specified sheep and goat material set out in Articles 3 and 4), and requires imported food and feedingstuffs of the types set out in Schedule 1 to be certified by the veterinary authorities in the place from which they were despatched to Northern Ireland as not containing class 1 specified risk material (Article 6).

The Order prohibits the use of specified risk material derived from animals slaughtered in the United Kingdom in ingredients for cosmetic, pharmaceutical and medical products (Article 7) and prohibits the use of all specified risk material in feedingstuffs for any creature, subject to an exemption for research purposes (Article 8).

Article 10 of the Order provides for the licensing of premises as suitable to process specified risk material in a manufacturing process not producing any food, feedingstuff, cosmetic, pharmaceutical or medical product or any product likely to come into contact with any of them.

The Order contains provisions on transport, storage and sampling (Articles 11 to 13), and makes provision for the recall and disposal of imported specified risk material and feedingstuffs containing specified risk material imported, produced or sold in contravention of the Order (Article 14). Article 15 prohibits the export of specified risk material to other member States, except in accordance with a licence granted by the Department.

This Order has been notified in draft to the European Commission as a technical standard, pursuant to article 8 of Council Directive 83/189/EEC laying down a procedure for the provision of information in the field of technical standards and regulations (as last amended by Directive 94/10/EC).