The Department of Agriculture’s Special Investigation Unit (SIU), in its most recent guise, is no more. After more than 20 years in operation, the Department announced on Wednesday morning that “a restructuring of [its] investigations capability” has taken place.

Commenting on the restructuring, Minister for Agriculture Simon Coveney said: “I was determined to have in place a strong, cohesive, consolidated and effective investigation capability to ensure and protect the reputation of the expanding agri-food industry and indeed public funds.”

Long treated with distain by farmers, the SIU was established in the late 1980s to deal with the use of illegal substances such as hormones and angel dust in cattle.

According to the Department, the “new arrangement brings all investigation capability, both internal and external, into one division”.

The new division will be headed by a yet unnamed senior superintending veterinary officer and will be supported by a team of investigators, some of whom, according to the Department, “are core members of the team and others to be drawn from areas where their expertise will be beneficial to the conduct of particular types of investigations”.

The Department has been eager to stress that this new investigation unit, and the review of procedures, is not as a result of the recent high-profile case with Tom Fleury. The Department of Agriculture settled a 15-year case with Fleury following an investigation into GVM Exports Ltd, a company Fleury jointly owned.

Welcomed

Both the IFA and ICMSA have welcomed the announcement from the Department of Agriculture but urged that the new division does not repeat the “mistakes” of the old SIU.

“Farmers had no faith in the unit and this move by the Minister must restore the credibility of the Department’s investigative oversight among farm families and the wider agricultural community,” IFA president Eddie Downey said.

John Comer, president of the ICMSA, said: “While farmers will support any reasonable measure that defended the reputation of their sector and Irish food, it is absolutely essential that the farmers charter monitoring committee has an oversight role on the workings of the new division.”