Mr. Seamus Dunne:

We do the documentary check. The first thing we do is make sure it is from the pest-free area. We map the various forests it is on. We then carry out an identity and physical check. We are very happy for members, if they wish as a committee, to come to Wicklow Port, which is the port where inspections now happen most frequently, to have a look at what we do. We take logs from various parts. We do not look at every log. There are literally thousands of logs on each shipment. We do not look at every log, obviously. We take a sample of about 30 to 45 or 50 logs from the top, middle and bottom, and we give them an examination.

We have found bark beetles sporadically on these, particularly in the older logs, but any bark beetles we have found have been sent to the lab, and they were bark beetles we have here. They are native bark beetles. To date, we have not found any of the quarantined bark beetles we are interested in. Once we are satisfied with that, we release the cargo.

For example, this month, I think we had one consignment in Wicklow and one in Rushbrooke in Cork towards the end of the month. There have only been, perhaps, two this month.