Lisa Chambers (Mayo, Fianna Fail)
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151. To ask the Minister for Health the status of the recruitment of sanitary and phytosanitary inspectors and food inspectors to prepare for Brexit; the number of persons his Department expects to hire; the number hired to date; when the recruitment process will be completed; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [42597/18]

Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael)
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Extensive work has been carried out across Government Departments on Brexit preparedness and contingency planning based on the ‘central case scenario’, i.e. an orderly withdrawal that incorporates a transition period until the end of 2020 and on an East-West basis. This included the identification of staffing requirements for the implementation of the necessary Sanitary and Phytosanitary (SPS) checks (official controls) carried out by the Department of Agriculture, Food and Marine (DAFM) and the HSE’s Environmental Health Service (EHS).

DAFM is the competent authority responsible for checks on live animals, animal products, plants and products of plant origin and the EHS is the competent authority with responsibility for official controls on food products such as food of non-animal origin and some composite food products coming from outside the EU.

On 11 October 2018, my Department advised the HSE that an additional allocation of €2.079 million is being made available to the EHS in 2019 for additional food import controls and export certification (63 whole time equivalents).

The HSE will now carry out further work to ensure appropriate recruitment on a phased basis of the personnel concerned with a view to having all positions filled by the end of 2019.