I see that the potential expansion of the Department of Agriculture’s food detector dog team is under consideration by Minister Creed.

He was asked the estimated full-year cost of purchasing six extra trained food detector dogs by Galway TD Catherine Connolly last week. The Department uses the dogs for import control checks.

Possible expansion

However, while the Minister said a possible expansion of the team of food detector dogs is under consideration, no formal decision has been taken just yet.

With a no-deal Brexit on the cards in under three weeks given the rumblings from Michel Barnier this week, a decision on more dogs to be deployed to import controls could be made a lot faster than originally expected.

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