Paul Daly (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the representatives from the Department. I will follow on from Deputy Flaherty's points. Officials have met the IFA previously. Its two big asks were the temporary suspension of imports while a task force is set up. Mr. Delany talked about an internal departmental review. Would he not consider a task force that would include stakeholders and experts? I have learned about the beetle. Before this evening, I only knew four Beatles - Paul, John, George and Ringo. I have learned more about beetles in the past couple of hours. Experts are needed. I do not know why the Department does not set up a task force immediately to bring in all those experts.

To be honest, with the best will in the world and with the greatest respect to the Scottish, what I hear of the checks that are going on is that we are very dependent on the Scottish. The only thing I am reassured about after hearing about what is happening is that if I file a log somewhere, there will be a great paper trail. Everybody's butt will be covered. The paper trail will be in order but there could still be a beetle in it because the checking is random. Beetle boxes are part of the check but if there are mice in your house, you will know about it before you find one in the trap. The damage will be done before the mouse is in the trap.

I know it is almost impossible to check every bark coming in but we need to be much more hands on than being dependent on the Scottish or any other regime or group from any other country. The Scots will be on their toes because if they find a beetle coming in here, it means their free area will be gone too, so they will be checking. I am not doubting them, and the greatest respect to them, but we are very much saying everything is all right, the Scots are looking after it, and we are all right because there is a paper trail for all this timber coming in. It only takes one of these beetles to come in, as was said, for the ash dieback crisis, without going down that road, to look like a park picnic.