Trevor Ó Clochartaigh (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Cuirim fáilte roimh an Aire Stáit. Tá mé thar a bheith buíoch dó as teacht isteach leis an cheist seo a phlé liom. I raise the issue of oysters in Ballinakill Bay in north Connemara. We in Ireland pride ourselves on being able to sell the country as a place which is green, which has organic foods, etc., as does the Minister. However, there is an anomaly in Ballinakill Bay, on which I have been working for quite a while. I refer to a certain strain of a virus called ostreid herpes virus which has been the subject of a surveillance programme funded by the EU and administered by the Marine Institute over the past number of years. The idea is to try to keep the strain of the virus out of bays, if possible.

Ballinakill Bay was clear of the virus but during the surveillance programme, one oyster out of 900 tested was found to have the virus. It was found at the beginning of the programme approximately three years ago. As one oyster was found, the whole bay was taken out of the surveillance programme which basically opened up the bay for other oyster farmers to bring in other strains of oysters, which can be infected with other types of virus, although they are saleable on the market because they do not harm people. However, they reduce the quality of the bay and affect the designation it would have as an organic one in which we can farm these oysters. It is having a serious impact on the business which has been selling these organic oyster throughout Europe for the past number of years.

I have raised this issue with the Marine Institute which indicated that it was following directives from the EU and that this was an EU programme. I also followed it up through the offices of Ms Martina Anderson, MEP, in conjunction with Mr. Pat The Cope Gallager, MEP, who raised it with the Commission. There is a question mark over how one infected oyster got into the sample. It seems very strange.

Does that mean the whole bay had the ostreid herpes virus? If no other oyster is found over a two-year period can we declare the bay to be free of the virus? I shall also raise these questions with the Commission.

I understand from the replies that we received from the Commission that the surveillance programme will continue until 2014. If one follows the letter of the law regarding the discovery of one infected oyster, one could argue that the bay should have been removed from the surveillance programme. I call on the Minister to have the bay reinstated until the end of the surveillance programme and for the Marine Institute to continue its testing in order to keep infected oysters out of the bay for at least another year. There is a chance that the bay is free of disease and, if so, then we should maintain that status. If we allow oysters carrying the virus into the bay then the virus will spread and we will have no chance to restore the organic status of the bay.

I appreciate that the matter is covered by EU legislation. The only course of action open to us is for the Minister to intervene and request that the Marine Institute and his colleagues in the Commission restore surveillance for another year and until the end of 2014. Such a provision would mean that we could engage at the end of year and check if there are more infected oysters. If they exist, then one could argue that the bay is no longer disease free. If no more diseased oysters are found then surely we can reinstate the disease-free status of the bay on a full-time basis. Such status would do us a lot of good at European and national levels and would support the farmers involved. I look forward to the Minister of State's reply.