The Specified Risk Material (Inspection Charges) Regulations (Northern Ireland) 1999

Explanatory Note

(This note is not part of the Regulations.)

These Regulations enable the Department to levy a charge on the occupiers or the owners and occupiers of slaughterhouses and cutting premises at which specified risk material (“SRM”) is removed from the carcases of cattle, sheep and goats (as required by the Specified Risk Material Regulations (Northern Ireland) 1997, S.R. 1997 No. 552). This charge covers the costs incurred by the Department in undertaking the inspections and controls permitted by regulations 9(9) and 15(4) of those Regulations (“the SRM inspections”).

The Regulations provide that the Department must notify the occupier of each place in which SRM inspections have taken place in any accounting period of the charge for that inspection as soon as possible after the end of the accounting period. Where such a notification has been made that occupier and the owner of the establishment in respect of which the charge arose will be jointly and severally liable for the charge (regulation 3).

The Regulations provide that the Department may require any person to provide it with such information as it may reasonably require to calculate the SRM charge, or to verify information provided for that purpose. A person who knowingly or recklessly provides information which is false or misleading is guilty of an offence (regulation 4).

The Regulations amend the Specified Risk Material Regulations (Northern Ireland) 1997 to provide that the Department may withdraw the inspections and controls provided for in regulation 9(9) of those Regulations and may suspend the approval of a plant under regulation 15 thereof where the person liable to pay the SRM charge under these Regualtions fails to do so, despite judgement for the sum owed having been entered against him.

The amendments to the Specified Risk Material Regulations also prohibit the sale for human consumption of the carcase of a ruminant animal which has not been marked in accordance with regulation 9(9) of those Regulations (regulation 5).

The Schedule to these Regulations specifies how the SRM charge is to be calculated, and provides that the Department shall determine the hourly rates used in the calculation of that charge following consultation with the relevant occupier.