Matt Carthy (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister for providing that statement and some additional information. My first question relates to the clarification he provided in today's statement with respect to his previous statement on the late evening of Friday, 23 October. He said that statement should have said the preliminary results were received on 6 October as opposed to 8 October. In that same statement, he indicated that the compliance notices were issued to all four of the warehouses on 8 October. Is that date also wrong? It is just to try to get the timeline. We now know preliminary results were received on 6 October. The Minister's statement said that compliance notices were issued on 8 October. Is that date still correct? He also said that six additional samples of the product were taken for testing on 8 October. Should that also have read 6 October? Then he said the additional samples were submitted for testing to the Department's laboratory on 9 October rather than his original statement, which was that preliminary testing was on 8 October with further samples going on 9 October. There is now a delay of three days. I do not know if there is a significance in that but, perhaps, the Minister will clarify.

The Minister mentioned that his Department informed the HSE of initial concerns about the safety. I gather that was on 6 October, so it was the day the preliminary tests were filed. The Minister might confirm that and the basis on which that correspondence took place with the HSE. Was that correspondence conveyed to the HSE as the health authority, in other words, in a public health capacity, or as a body that had ordered a lot of the product? Was it expected that this was for internal management of the product that it had taken in or was it to disseminate the information? The big issues is in terms of the dissemination of the information and the time lag from when concerns were first raised through the EU anti-fraud organisation, OLAF, and the Revenue Commissioners in September to the actual point of 23 October when this became public knowledge and, as we know, resulted in schools closing for a day and all the rest.

The third question relates to one I asked when we discussed this in the ministerial questions previously regarding the financial recoupment of the associated costs. I know and gather that many separate Departments and agencies are engaged in trying to recoup some of the costs and, in some cases, have managed to have it fully recouped from their distributor or whatever the case may be. Has the Minister put a cost of this debacle to his Department in terms of all these tests and, obviously, all the internal examination that needed to take place? Is there a mechanism for the Department to recoup those costs, either from the original supplier or through another avenue?

The Minister mentioned that 75 sanitiser products have now been sampled and tested. I welcome that. It is the correct approach and I encourage that it be adopted as par for the course that these products are tested on a random basis from time to time. There are 75 out of 450. The fact they have all proven to be up to the adequate standards is also welcome.

Is this work going to commence and will the Department initiate a process whereby samples are taken from new products, either on a sporadic or comprehensive basis, in order that we can be assured that this will not happen again?

Having gone through the documentation the company provided to various Departments, including that of the Minister, it appears that it never gave the same information twice. Even in respect of its product labels - I will not go through all the references - the word "de-ionised" was misspelled, suggesting a completely different word. There are discrepancies in respect of communications, even with the HSE. At one stage the HSE indicated that it could no longer access stock from the UK, but that it had secured additional stock from Europe and confirmed it was from the same factory. The material safety data sheet provided to the HSE, however, shows that the products were different. I am told that in one case, the health business service quote from the vendor referred to the standard to which the product conforms as EU Regulation No. 1223/2009, which deals with cosmetic products rather than medical ones. All these discrepancies in the documentation the company provided to the HSE and the Department can be seen in hindsight. Will there be a review of how these products are classified, particularly if we are to rely on paper-based assessments to allow them into the market?