Under S.I. No. 9 of 2024 the Department of Health has designated the EPA’s Radiation Monitoring Laboratory as an “Official Laboratory” that may carry out the analysis of samples taken during official controls which may be introduced in the event of a nuclear or radiological emergency.
The EPA undertakes an annual food monitoring programme. Details of the current programme including the food types and sampling locations are given in the table below.
| Food Type | Location | Frequency | Measurements |
|---|---|---|---|
| Milk |
Dairies: • Bailieboro
|
Monthly samples that are bulked and analysed quarterly | Cs-137, Sr-90 I-131 (Ballyragget only, analysed monthly) |
| Mixed diet | UCD, Dublin | Monthly sample that is bulked and analysed quarterly | Cs-137, Sr-90 and C-14 |
| Malting barley, milling oats, milling wheat | Department of Agriculture inspectors provide grain samples from the main growing locations nationwide | Annually | Cs-137, K-40 and other gamma emitting radionuclides |
This monitoring shows that the levels of radioactivity from human-made sources in these food types are so low that they are generally below limits of detection (less than 5 Bq/kg).
The EPA also monitors samples provided by the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine (DAFM) of food and feedstuffs originating from countries outside the European Union under Council Regulation (Euratom) 2016/52 and Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) 2020/1158.
Under Article 36 of the Euratom Treaty, EU Member States are obliged to submit radioactivity monitoring data to the European Commission. Each year, the EPA submits data on concentrations of radionuclides in air, milk, mixed diet, seafood, and seawater to the European Commission. These data are stored in the Commission’s Radioactivity Environmental Monitoring (REM) Database and are published in the European Commission’s annual monitoring reports on environmental radioactivity levels.
