Paul Connaughton Snr (Galway East, Fine Gael)

The Minister is making a terrible mistake in her approach to this matter. As was rightly said by my colleagues, the minute there was an outbreak of foot and mouth disease in England the Minister rightly said on television that she would pull down the shutters and ban the import of beef to this country. Why did she not take that approach and ban a product of lesser quality, of unknown quality or quality over which nobody could stand? Why are we not making a racket about this at the Council of Ministers and requesting the banning of the importation of such substandard products into Europe? It is one thing to talk about this issue in Ireland but we export eight out of every ten animals to the European market, which is where we face the real competition. What are the Minister and Ministers of State doing about it? They are behaving like lambs; there is not a word out of them. It appears that when the Minister, Deputy Coughlan, goes to Europe——

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