Ministers congratulate Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine laboratories on significant achievement

Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine, Martin Heydon TD, and Minister of State with responsibility for Food Promotion, New Markets, Research and Development, Noel Grealish TD, have congratulated the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine’s laboratories on being selected for an elite EU working group.

The laboratories in the Department’s Food Chemistry Division are one of only four National Reference Laboratories in the EU to join a working group on the use of a scientific technique for the analysis of veterinary medicines. The working group will set out guidance on the use of High-Resolution Accurate Mass (HRAM) Mass Spectrometry in EU legislation.

The technique aims to ensure that any food which is placed on the market is free from pesticide and veterinary drug residues, allowing consumers to be confident that the food they eat is free from contaminants and is therefore safe to consume.

Furthermore, a member of the Division, Ian Kelleher, has been invited to speak at the North American Chemical Residue Workshop 2025 taking place from the 27 to 30 July in South Carolina.

The event is a global annual meeting of scientists working in trace-level analysis of pesticides, veterinary drug residues, and other chemicals.

The Food Chemistry Division, led by Dr Jim Garvey, was established in 2019 to centralise all food chemistry activities carried out in the Department and to create a Centre of Excellence for Food Chemistry.

Commenting on the achievement, Minister Heydon said:

Minister Grealish also commented:

The High-Resolution Accurate Mass (HRAM) Mass Spectrometry technique is used to measure molecular mass to the fourth decimal place accurately. Because atomic masses are not whole numbers, when combined into molecules, the component after the decimal point can be very significant. Therefore, the HRAM Mass Spectrometry technique allows molecules to be identified with very high confidence. Once identified, the molecules can be quantified and compared against legal limits.

The Division’s laboratories recently completed a major project in which they established multi-class methods for the analysis of 88 antibacterial substances in muscle, milk, eggs and honey. These multi-class methods allow for the analysis of a number of different classes of antibacterial substances in one analytical method.

The laboratories have now commenced a project to further expand the scope of this method to cover other veterinary medicines such as non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDS), coccidiostats, nitroimidazoles, carbadox, olaquindox and dual use pesticides. This means that every sample can be screened for a much wider range of veterinary medicines (up to 200), once again ensuring that the consumer has confidence that the food they eat is residue-free.

• The North American Chemical Residue Workshop 2025 will be held from 27 July to 30 July 2025 in Francis Marion Hotel, Charleston, South Carolina. Ian Kelleher, Chemist, of the Food Chemistry Division will speak at the event on 29 July 2025.
• The Food Chemistry Division has National Reference Laboratory responsibility for nine areas of European law including Pesticide Residues in food of plant and animal origin, single residue methods, antibacterial substances, b-Agonists, anti-thyroid agents and chemical elements. These duties involve taking part in blind proficiency and attending EU meetings organised by the network of European Union Reference Laboratories.
• In compliance with EU law, all of the laboratories are accredited to ISO 17025 and are audited every year by the Irish National Accreditation Board (INAB).