Raymond Ellard has worked in various aspects of food control from the local to the international level since he qualified as an Environmental Health Officer (EHO) in Ireland in 1975. For eight years he was Chief Environmental Health Officer with the Department of Health and Children. He moved to the then newly established Food Safety Authority of Ireland (FSAI) as Chief Specialist in Environmental Health, before taking up his present post there as one of the Directors.
Within FSAI, as Director of Risk Management and Regulatory Affairs he is part of the Senior Management Team and has held many responsibilities including service level agreements with official agencies. Currently he is responsible for the Authority’s training group, veterinary public health and agriculture group, food incidents team, regulatory affairs and the FSAI Consultative Council.
He has worked with the EU systems as a national expert representing Ireland at various working groups on food safety and food regulations. He has also worked internationally as a consultant on food control for both the World Health Organisation and the Food and Agriculture Organisation. In addition, he has worked as a training provider and project leader on food safety and food control for many EU candidate countries. He represents FSAI at the European Food Safety Authority’s (EFSA) Advisory Forum.
For five years from 2006 he was Honorary Secretary of the International Federation of Environmental Health. He is currently chair of the group in Europe known as FLEP (Food Law Enforcement Practitioners). He holds three Master’s Degrees; one each in Food Science, Health Services Management and European Food Regulatory Affairs.
