Charlie McConalogue (Donegal, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank the members for their questions and comments. First, on Deputy Carthy's questions around the dates, the preliminary results were received on 6 October rather than 8 October, but the other dates are the same. I would emphasise that the test results concerned confiscated consignments which had been confiscated at the outset and remained so throughout. The Department issued a compliance notice to the warehouses to continue to detain the products on 8 October, and the day before that the Department contacted the HSE advising it to remove all ViraPro hand sanitiser products in use at the time. That was on the basis that the product had been quarantined and most of it was HSE owned, so the Department contacted the HSE on that particular consignment, and then on 7 October it informed the HSE of the advice concerning ViraPro hand sanitiser products that it was using, recommending that they should not be used. That explains the correspondence with the HSE on the issue.

On the issue of financial recoupment, that is primarily a matter for those that ViraPro was supplying and is between them. The Department is in an ongoing process with ViraPro with a view to closing out this particular issue, and it will be closed out before any further decisions are made. Deputy Carthy also raised the importance of ensuring that there is confidence in the products in the market and pointed out that out of 75 hand sanitiser products have been tested randomly, there have been no public health concerns emerging from those tests. He also asked if those tests will continue.

They are happening on a weekly basis and they will continue.

The registration of new products is a paper-based application where the company makes the application in terms of what the composition of the product is going to be, and seeks a licence to market it on the basis of the composition it is advising. It is a paper-based process and testing does not take place at that time. The important thing is that there is testing of what is on the market. In terms of assessing that very question, the assessment would be that if somebody was making an application, we would certainly expect that the initial product would be compliant and that a particular effort would be made in that regard. At the moment, it is paper-based. It is essential that testing happens and the testing of the 75 products since then has given confidence in regard to what is on the market, and that will continue.

Senator Paul Daly asked about sanctions for a company and I dealt with that issue in response to Deputy Carthy. That is an ongoing process and we will engage in that process until it is completed.

In terms of how Brexit will affect products and the potential for smuggling, in order for any product to be sold on the market in Ireland, it is legally required to have a pesticide control service, PCS, number from the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine. Any advice that we have issued to consumers or to companies has made it clear that they must ensure there is a PCS number on it. Any product that comes from outside the country would not have that and, certainly, the oversight mechanisms and audit mechanisms that we have in place in terms of testing product and following up, and any reports we would get, are important in regard to overseeing that. We have made it clear to members of the public, as well as to retailers, that they should ensure any product they get has a PCS number.

In response to Senator Tim Lombard, I dealt with the issue about the application process. On the numbers coming through the application process at the moment, there are 457 hand sanitisers or wipes registered by the Department that have been issued with a PCS number. Of those, 373 would have been issued in 2020, so we can see there has been a massive increase in the number of hand sanitisers over the course of the year. In addition, there are some 200 currently awaiting a PCS number and there is a 13-week wait time. I have allocated additional staff to reduce that time and I am allocating more. As members can see, of the 457, some 373 products with a PCS number have been issued over the course of the past year. With regard to that approval mark or approval certification, the indication of that is the PCS number on the product. That is what we have clarified for members of the public whenever they are purchasing product and also for companies selling them.