Michael Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I will be as quick as I can. With regard to the great work Teagasc is doing in studying and researching exactly what happened concerning ash dieback, the Chair has agreed to provide a report commissioned and given to a previous Oireachtas committee. The committee will have all the detail on that work. That work is continuing to this day. I thank Teagasc for its great work. On protecting us in the future, I visited the institutes where this work is being carried out and they are studying potential threats and hazards that could come our way in imports. There are safety checks in place now and studies undertaken. Wonderful work is being done in forests that people do not see or think about. They might see a van going in and out every so often and wonder what that person is doing. They are collecting data and studying different species coming into the forests. They take them away, examine and analyse them, seeing exactly what we are dealing with at any given time. Great work is being done. It ties into a question Deputy Aird asked about contamination in the ground and ash dieback and whether there is a future threat to trees planted on ash dieback sites. I know members would be concerned as well. The answer is no. The disease affected it at that time but the ground or stubs of the trees are not contaminated. There is a type of ash that has grown that is resilient to disease but that is a different subject. We are on top of our game as it stands.