Aquaculture services

We provide a range of services to the aquaculture industry to ensure that the industry operates to the highest standards, in the areas of seafood safety, fish health and monitoring of the marine environment. We run a number of national aquaculture monitoring and control programmes to ensure that the aquaculture industry operates to international best practice standards, in accordance with European and national legislation, ensuring high quality seafood production and minimising the impact on the environment.

These programmes include the national sea lice monitoring and control programme, the national phytoplankton monitoring programme which monitors marine waters for harmful algal blooms, and the national residues programme. The Marine Institute is the regulator for fish health in aquaculture, and monitors shellfish for viral and bacterial contamination, and environmental pollutants.

We provide advice to the Department of Agriculture Food and the Marine on the licensing of aquaculture operations. In doing this, we assess all relevant information, including all relevant Irish and international scientific research on aquaculture and its impacts, which includes sea lice impacts, seafloor impacts, environmental pollutants etc and assess all the environmental factors to arrive at a consensus on the potential impacts of an aquaculture development.

The Marine Institute is the National Reference Laboratory for: