Environmental Protection Agency Act, 1992

• Permanent Page URL

Establishment of an accreditation scheme.

66.—(1) (a) The Agency may, for the purposes of assessing analytical performance and ensuring the validity and comparability of environmental data, establish, or arrange for the establishment of, an analytical quality control programme involving its own laboratories, laboratories provided and operated by local authorities, and such other laboratories as it deems appropriate from which data are submitted to the Agency in connection with the performance of any of its functions.

(b) The Agency may require any such laboratory to furnish it with such data as it may request for the purposes of any such programme.

(c) Without prejudice to the generality of paragraph (a), the Agency may establish different analytical quality control programmes for different laboratories or for different tests.

(2) The Agency may require any laboratory which supplies environmental data to the Agency or in connection with any function under this Act to be accredited in accordance with Irish Standard I.S./EN 45001: 1989—General Criteria for the Operation of Testing Laboratories—or equivalent and with such other or further standards as may be set, from time to time, by the National Standards Authority of Ireland or equivalent standards.

(3) The Agency may provide for the imposition of charges and the payment of fees in connection with the provision of services or any procedural matters under this section.

(4) The Agency shall maintain a register of laboratories which comply with the requirements of subsection (1) or which are required to be accredited under subsection (2).

(5) The register shall include a list of tests to which such compliance or accreditation relates and shall be available for inspection by any person free of charge at the Agency's headquarters during office hours.