Mr. Francie Gorman:

As we said, the biosecurity measures need to be in place. The problem with ACRES is that the requirement to plant by 31 March cannot be supplied by the nursery industry here. The quicks are just not in place. There has been a relaxation in allowing the importation of quicks into the country to help to meet the requirement for farmers to plant whitethorn by 31 March. If that requirement were spread out over the five years of the scheme, it would have given a signpost to the nursery industry to sow their quicks and have them in place over the five-year period. That would have been a better way of doing it.

There may well be a flood of nursery stock coming in from the UK. The biosecurity measures must be in place for them in the same way we are looking for in terms of the bark beetle. We have already seen with ash dieback that when they are not in place, devastating consequences occur. It is the same with animal disease. A lot of the diseases in our animals came in from importing stock into the country. This is too serious an issue for the Department to say that under EU plant law, it is not allowed to address this issue until the bark beetle is found in this country. That is not acceptable. The Department must go back, look at this and make sure it can be addressed. If we wait until the bark beetle comes in, it will be too late.