Fidelma Healy Eames (Fine Gael)

I support Senator O'Toole's amendment to the Order of Business calling for an education debate, which has been seconded. We want to know what is happening. At this stage the only conclusion I can come to is that the Minister, Deputy Batt O'Keeffe, must be afraid to address the Seanad on the education cuts and where we stand in that regard.

I join the other speakers who expressed concern about the state of emergency in which food producers find themselves. The issue of dioxins in pork and now beef has the potential to wreck the industry. I am aware we will discuss this issue tomorrow, but there are no dioxin test laboratories in this country. If that is the case, how was the dioxin detected in pork and traced back to the Carlow plant? No test was carried out in that plant in 2008. Was it detected as a result of a tip-off from the Belgian-Swiss authorities?