Mary Wallace (Meath, Fianna Fail)

The Minister of State is complaining he has lost a good member of staff, so the best of staff are being transferred to Dublin Airport.

Deputy Upton asked about identifying food. One area currently under consideration is the deployment of sniffer dogs specially trained to detect food. Anything else that can be done with regard to this issue will be done, but our current experience indicates that interviewing and bag searching produces the high quantities, so to speak, and the success we have in finding illegal consignments.

With regard to Deputy Sargent's question on statistics, in 2005 there were approximately 565 illegal consignments in personal luggage and of those almost 3,000 kg of meat products and 237 kg of milk products were involved.

With regard to staff, there has to be Department staff on duty at the three main airports at all times. As for Deputy Sargent's question about other countries, we are obliged to send annual reports to the European Commission, which monitors the situation very closely in Ireland and the other EU countries. The Commission is continually reviewing the situation and is considering a written declaration for passengers originating from third countries. We already fill in such declarations when we travel to the United States.

The situation is constantly under review both in the Department and in the EU. We have provided the necessary staff at the ports.

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