Artificial Insemination of Cattle (Amendment) Regulations (Northern Ireland) 1997

Explanatory Note

(This note is not part of the Regulations.)

These Regulations implement the provisions of Council Directive 88/407/EEC (“the Directive”) as amended by Council Directives 90/120/EEC, 90/425/EEC and 93/60/EEC. For that purpose they further amend the Artificial Insemination of Cattle Regulations (Northern Ireland) 1988 (“the 1988 Regulations”) in relation to the collection, processing, storage and transport of bovine semen. In particular they require that semen for export to a Member State of the European Community must comply with Article 3 of the Directive.

The principal changes to the 1988 Regulations are as follows:

(a) the definition of processing has been amended to include either all of the processes listed in (a) to (f) of the definition, (fully processed) or one or more of the processes listed at (a) to (d), (partially processed) (regulation 3);

(b) a storage centre or quarantine storage depot licence will not authorise the storage of processed semen intended for export to a Member State unless that semen complies with the requirements of the Directive (regulation 5);

(c) a quarantine storage depot licence will authorise the holder to store semen which has been collected in a processing centre which complies with the requirements of the Directive (regulation 6);

(d) the licensing of processing centres is dependent upon them complying with the provisions of the Directive. Each processing centre must be supervised by a veterinarian approved by the Department (“the centre veterinarian”) (regulation 7);

(e) raw semen must be distributed under the conditions of a special movement licence granted by the Department. A distribution licence will not authorise the distribution of semen intended for export to a Member State unless such semen complies with the requirements of the Directive (regulation 8);

(f) the approval of a bull for the purpose of collecting semen for use in the artificial insemination of a cow is dependent upon it complying with the provisions of the Directive (regulation 10);

(g) the exemptions from the controls set out in the 1988 Regulations granted by regulation 16 thereof have been extended to include a person who is a member of a bovine embryo transplantation team under the Bovine Embryo Collection, Production and Transplantation Regulations (Northern Ireland) 1996 (regulation 12).