More stringent inspection of Ireland's remaining mink farms is to be conducted by the Department of Agriculture and Food.
Until now, mink farms were inspected irregularly, with intervals sometimes as long as five years.
However, from this year on the farms will be inspected annually, according to a spokesman for the Department of Agriculture and Food.
He said there were now only six mink farms remaining in the Republic and that every care would be taken to ensure that the animals were treated in a proper way and that they could not escape.
The most recent mink escape from a farm occurred last year in Waterford, when there were complaints about the animals from residents in the Helvic Head area of the county.
Considerable damage was done to local wildlife as a result of the escape, which occurred when a fence was maliciously damaged at the farm.
At the time the Department confirmed that considerable numbers of mink had escaped into the wild, but said the owner of the farm was not to blame for what had happened.
Mink farming was introduced here in the 1950s and within a short time animals began to escape into the wild, causing havoc among wildlife.
Mink adapt easily to local conditions and are multi-functional killers, with the ability to kill birds in trees and fish in rivers. They also tend to drive otters from their normal habitats.
Feral mink have now established themselves in all the major waterways on this island, where they have caused considerable damage to native wildlife.
Difficult to trap, the feral mink's fur has no commercial value. So they are not widely hunted except by gunclubs and fishing clubs anxious to protect their stocks.