Trevor Sargent (Dublin North, Green Party)

I will be doing well to deal in five minutes with the considerable number of contributions from Senators, all of which I appreciate. I will do my best to address the questions raised. I, too, would like more time to debate this matter but, like the Cathaoirleach, I am bound by the orders of the House.

Senator Bradford asked if the response to this crisis might have been a bit over the top. The lessons internationally are that it was not. We know what happens when one tries to offer caveats in response to situations like this. The Belgians thought they would be able to quietly deal with their crisis. People are punished if there is a perception that they are in any way trying to avoid taking hard decisions and that punishment is often worse than the pain of the initial response. The decision made on Saturday was a painful one. It was one of the most traumatic days of my political career. The Taoiseach, the Minister and I, with our officials, were forced to face up to the reality of what had to be done to save this sector and to ensure Ireland, the food island, restored its reputation.

We are dealing with more than 30 countries. One cannot, when speaking to people in Japan or Singapore, make anything other than black and white, simple statements. As mentioned earlier, Sky News was dishonest in its broadcast last night which stated there was a dioxin problem with beef, given that there had been no confirmation to that effect. We must take on board the challenge we have been set to rebrand and relaunch Irish food. Bord Bia is already doing this and the Minister, Deputy Brendan Smith, is ready to travel to those markets on which we depend and have served well for many years, and will continue to serve into the future, God willing. Investment will be needed. We have engaged in this regard in discussions with the Department of Finance and the Taoiseach. The investment called for by Senator Bradford will be made.

I believe EU money is well justified in this instance. I have for many years insisted that country of origin labelling be established not alone for beef but for all food products. Given that we do not have in place a requirement in respect of country of origin labelling, the pork about which we are speaking is EU pork, and the EU must, therefore, recognise that. The Commission insisted it regarded Irish pork as EU pork and it must, therefore, respond to this crisis. I will be arguing strongly in this regard and I hope and expect a good outcome on the matter.

Senator Coffey spoke about dioxin testing. Dioxin testing is more complex than PCB testing. Regardless of where in the world it is done, it takes longer than PCB testing. When in Backweston I was impressed by the sophistication of the laboratories there. Techniques have been developed in our laboratories to speed up PCB testing. We have moved from a two and a half day turn-around to a one day turn-around, which is the norm internationally. When dioxin testing is up and running, I hope in February, we will have state-of-the-art facilities. Such testing is expensive, but we have to pay for it. The cost per test for dioxins is between €1,000 and €1,200. As is the case in many areas, prevention is better than cure. We do not want to have to deal with this type of situation again and, therefore, we need to take whatever steps are necessary to avoid dioxins getting into the food chain at the start of the process.