The Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs (DAERA) has confirmed that Northern Ireland’s Animal and Public Health Information System (APHIS) is now back online.
This is the computer-based facility that delivers full traceability for Northern Ireland’s cattle and sheep sectors.
The service went down on Sunday evening (August 20) as part of a greater IT ‘crash’ across many of Northern Ireland’s civil service departments.
Large queues of farmers with cattle due for slaughter had built up at a number of meat plants yesterday morning (Monday, August 21).
The incident left many farmers wanting to know why adequate back-up facilities have not been put in place by DAERA when IT problems of this nature arise.
Upgrade of APHIS
Meanwhile, plans remain in place to upgrade APHIS to the Northern Ireland Food Animal Information System (NIFAIS) on Monday, September 4.
This is a project that has been beset with delays. A number of previous attempts have been made to complete this transition, all ending in delay.
DAERA has already spent millions of pounds putting the replacement for APHIS in place.
The project is years behind schedule and has already been the focus of a report from the office of the Comptroller and Auditor General (C&AG) for Northern Ireland.
The C&AG referenced a litany of mistakes and shortcomings that relate to the introduction of NIFAIS. Many of these were apparent from the very outset of the project.
The end result has been years of delay in getting a feasible alternative to APHIS off the ground plus the escalating costs associated with all of this.
The effective introduction of NIFAIS is a priority for Northern Ireland’s beef, dairy and sheep sectors.
For the last decade or more, APHIS was lauded as the system that gives Northern Ireland’s food sectors that all-important advantage on export markets, where guarantees of full traceability from farm to fork are concerned.
