Joe McHugh (Donegal North East, Fine Gael)
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Question 192: To ask the Tánaiste and Minister for Finance the number of sniffer dogs being trained in this country; the length of time it takes for each dog to be trained; if he has plans to allocate further funding to the training of such dogs; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [8912/08]

Brian Cowen (Laois-Offaly, Fianna Fail)
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I am advised by the Revenue Commissioners that the Customs Service currently deploys 12 detector dog teams at strategic locations throughout the country. All these dogs were initially trained in the UK. It normally takes between 8 and 12 weeks to train a detector dog. This is followed by joint training of the officer and the dog together, which takes up to a further 9 weeks. The final part of this training involves orientation and deployment in the actual working environments in the State where the dog will be used. Continuation and refresher training is also provided on an ongoing basis. The dogs are used to detect drugs, tobacco and cash. Passive dogs are used as this allows for the screening of passengers as well as merchandise and baggage.

In keeping with their commitment to the Government's National Drug Strategy, the Commissioners have considerably enhanced their drug detection capability in recent years on a number of fronts. In respect of detector dog teams alone, the number of these has been increased from 6 in 1993 to 9 in 2003 and now stands at 12. The Commissioners constantly monitor and review the effectiveness of resource deployment and allocate additional resources, where there is a need to do so.

The Commissioners also believe in ensuring the detector dog teams maintain a high public visibility at the ports, airports, postal depots and freight forwarders' premises in which they routinely operate. The Customs' detector dogs also assist an Garda Síochána, whenever requested to do so.