Thomas Byrne (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

The more one reads about this crisis that has hit Britain and is now hitting Ireland, the more one is reminded of the lines in the Lament for Kilcash:

Cad a dhéanfaimid feasta gan adhmad?
Tá deireadh na gcoillte ar lár;

That is coming true before our very eyes. The country is facing an environmental, ecological and economic disaster and I am not sure the public at large fully understand the scale of it. It is an absolute disaster for the country that this has happened here. One cannot criticise the actions of the Minister of State, Deputy McEntee, in banning imports after it was discovered in Ireland. By contrast it took months for Britain to do anything. However, the British seem to have got a grip on it now. Its COBRA Cabinet committee, which is the equivalent of the US White House situation room, is meeting regularly on the topic. That is how seriously the British are taking it now having done nothing for months. Should a Cabinet committee here be treating this as a national emergency? The same committee that dealt with the Iraq war and terrorist bombings in Britain is now dealing with this crisis. That is how they have copped on after all their delay. The Minister of State here did not delay and acted promptly, but the matter needs to be escalated in the public awareness.

This is seen as a problem for the industry, Coillte and hurley makers, but it is a problem for the entire country. We need to make people more aware of the symptoms to look out for so that they can report cases of it. It appears that a number of bodies in the UK had warned their Government as far back as 2009 of the dangers of ash imports and urged it to ban the import of ash, but it failed to do so. Were similar warnings given here in the past three years and did we fail to act on them?

I wish to discuss the destruction of ash and the cost to the Department in compensation that may arise. There is legal action in the UK because of the alleged failure of its Government to heed warnings given in recent years to ban imports. We need to up the ante on this and publicise it in a much more effective way. Legislation needed to be implemented and the Minister of State did that in time. However, the Minister of State's senior colleagues in government need to get more of a grip on the problem and treat it as the national emergency it is.

Other than that we will support whatever must be done in this regard.