Darren O'Rourke (Meath East, Sinn Fein)
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1138. To ask the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine the estimated full-year cost of purchasing four food detector dogs. [1208/21]

Charlie McConalogue (Donegal, Fianna Fail)
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My Department continuously reviews its various arrangements with regards to import control checks, of which the use of food detector dogs is one part. If any trained food detection dogs were to be purchased, the process would be subject to normal procurement rules.

Thus, while it is not possible to give a definitive answer on cost, typically the initial costs of a detection dog would be of the order of €100,000 per dog - this would include the cost of the dog, training costs, salary costs for the handler and other ancillary costs.