Charlie McConalogue (Donegal, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

The Deputy referred to temporary pesticide control service, PCS, numbers. The PCS numbers that were issued were not temporary. All Departments have been impacted by the need to work from home in recent times, but the process by which licences and PCS numbers are issued must still be followed.

Regarding increasing throughput, as I outlined earlier the significant majority of the 457 PCS numbers currently issued to hand sanitisers or wipes were authorised this year. There has been an increase in staffing numbers. Normally a staff of four process biocidal product registration applications, in addition to carrying out a range of other duties in the pesticide control division. Since the arrival of Covid-19 several other staff members within the division, approximating one and a half whole-time-equivalents, have been assisting with processing biocidal product registration applications.

A further two staff from across the wider laboratory are also assisting with processing registration applications on a part-time basis in recent months. Since 9 November a further three additional staff have been temporarily allocated to the work area and it is planned to bring in four more to deal with the backlog.