Matt Carthy (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein)
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300. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills if his Department or an agency operating under his Department has encountered expenditure in respect of hand sanitisation products or other PPE products that were subsequently subject to a recall by the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine in 2020; if so, the expenditure in respect of such products; if the expenditures will be recouped from the sellers; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [36005/20]

Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael)
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On 22 October 2020 the Department of Agriculture, Food and Marine notified the Department of Education that it had removed ViraPro hand sanitiser from the product register. On the same day that Department removed the supplier of Virapro and its entire product offering from the Education Sector PPE Procurement Agreement and advised all schools and other educational institutions to cease all use of these products. These products have been on general sale and not just available through the education sector framework. On Friday 23rd the Department of Agriculture further advised not to use any Virapro branded product and this was communicated, with the instruction to store the product pending collection by the supplier.

On foot of these notifications arrangements were also made to bring to the attention of the wider sector and aegis bodies on the product recall, and on the follow-on decision to remove from the approved list of products under the Education Sector PPE Procurement Agreement 52 other products which were not subject to the product recall but whose registration status could not be confirmed.

Based on data supplied by Maxxcare, the supplier of Virapro, it is estimated that 10% of schools have been supplied with Virapro. The total value of the product supplied is estimated to be between €200,000 to €300,000. Just one Higher Education Institution and a small number of other colleges were involved in the total recall. The value of the product involved is incorporated in the estimate referred to. This estimated value is based on sales data and therefore it is expected that the value of the product to be recalled is lower given some product would have been used since purchased. It should be noted that most Institutes of Higher Education have very limited staff and students on premises currently. The Department of Education has committed to continue to monitor the situation and update data as it becomes available.