Michael Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent)
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1413. To ask the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine if an application for a PCS number (details supplied) will be expedited; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [22007/20]

Charlie McConalogue (Donegal, Fianna Fail)
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Biocidal products may only be marketed and used in Ireland once they are registered with my Department and are entered on the “Product Register” in accordance with Regulation 20 of Statutory Instrument 427 of 2013. Each individual trade name must be registered as a separate biocidal product and will have its own unique PCS registration number or IE/BPA registration number. Currently there are in excess of 1,300 biocidal products registered in Ireland for use as general disinfectants.

On August 26th the Pesticide Registration and Control Division (PRCD) in my Department received an application for registration of a biocidal product from the company named for use as a general disinfectant. I can confirm that the application will be placed in the biocidal products application system for processing and PRCD will contact the applicant in due course. All applications are processed in chronological order. Since March of this year, PRCD have received over 600 new product applications, double the normal application rate for biocidal products, of which the vast majority are for hand sanitising and disinfectant products.

You will appreciate, therefore, that processing times for these applications are running longer than usual. Additional staff resources are being allocated to this area of activity.