Dublin Biocides Symposium 2025 – EU Biocide Developments – An Irish Perspective
Dublin Biocides Symposium 2025 – EU Biocide Developments – An Irish Perspective
On the 26th and 27th of March, Kerona Scientific held the Dublin Biocides Symposium which dealt with key regulatory aspects relevant to biocidal products. On the first day of the symposium, Dr. Mervyn Parr responsible for biocide authorisations and coordination of active substance evaluations at the Pesticide Registration and Control Divisions (PRCD) in the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine (DAFM) in Ireland, opened the symposium with a presentation on “EU Biocide Developments – An Irish Perspective”.
Dr. Parr discussed a variety of topics including the importance of biocides, recent progress of active substances, product authorisations, challenges faced, and what the future of biocides looks like. The Biocidal Products Regulation (BPR), which officially came into Irish law in 2013, is essential to improve the functioning of biocidal products in the EU while ensuring a high level of protection. It aims to harmonise the market at EU level, and this is all co-ordinated under ECHA. While the number of active substances still to be reviewed in the EU has slightly decreased from last year, the review programme (RP) has nevertheless been extended to December 2030.
Dr. Parr spoke about the number of products on the Irish National Register under transitional measures (TM) and how some up-and-coming active substance approval dates will impact a lot of products on the TM register. Dr. Parr discussed the valuable insights the PRCD have gained from previous biocidal product applications and how these have helped in identifying common problems. These include full sections of dossiers not being completed, incomplete or missing studies, mismatched summary of product characteristics (SPC) in mutual recognition (MR) cases, and instances of applying to a concerned Member State (CMS) for a minor/major change when this must be done by the reference Member State (RMS). In terms of advertising and labelling in Ireland all products must comply with Article 69 of Regulation (EU) 528/2012 and Regulation (EC) 1272/2008. What makes the Irish competent authority unique in this case is that the DAFM is involved in both registration and enforcement. A printed copy of the Irish label in accordance with the Annexes of Regulation (EU) 528/2012 must be submitted to the Irish competent authority for biocides before the product is made available on the Irish market.
Lastly, Dr. Parr discussed future developments. While completion of the review programme has been extended to 2030, this is still an ambitious target. The delay in the RP will have a knock-on effect on product authorisations with delays imminent. A review of the BPR is due to be completed by 2026 and this will be a good opportunity to review how the original objectives of the BPR are working. Ideally, the number of products under TM should decline as we go forward with the RP, and the number of authorised products should increase. The DAFM is holding a Biocidal Products Symposium on 29th May 2025 in Celbridge Co. Kildare, focusing mainly on notification holders and the transition they will make to move over to product authorisation.
If you missed the Dublin Biocides Symposium, a copy of the presentations is available on the Kerona website. For assistance with the authorisation of biocidal products or support for biocide applications and REACH, please do not hesitate to contact Kerona at info@kerona.ie or call us at +353 (0)1 849 5284.