Jan O'Sullivan (Limerick City, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Senator. I apologise for Minister Coveney's absence but he was unable to attend this important and complex debate.

As the Senator said, the competent authority for dealing with the issue is the Marine Institute. The core issue is that in areas deemed free of the disease there should be no importation of stock from infected areas. The areas were known as surveillance areas and included Ballinakill. In 2011 a positive test result necessitated the removal of the bay from the surveillance programme.

Losses related to the virus in oysters were first observed in Ireland in 2008. The disease spread over the next couple of years and was strongly associated with imports of seed from France. Following representations made to the EU Commission by the Marine Institute, it was agreed by the Commission that this was a serious emerging disease and that trade restrictions should be put in place to protect the areas that were still free of the virus while allowing trade to continue between infected areas.

EU legislation was brought forward to that effect in 2010. As a result, a surveillance programme was established in certain parts of Ireland, the UK and the Netherlands. The kernel of the surveillance programme was that each competent authority identified epidemiological units, or bays in the case of Ireland, where virus-related mortality had not been observed to date, and which the member state wished to protect from trade with other infected areas either within their own member state or further afield, most particularly France. Once these areas were identified as part of the surveillance programme, they could only trade with areas that were also in a surveillance programme, either here or abroad, and were thereby afforded a level of legal protection against the virus.

One of the requirements of being in the surveillance programme was that a testing regime would be put in place to ensure that these bays were free of the virus. A significant amount of State resources have been put into the operation of the Irish surveillance programme since it started in 2010. Since the basis of the surveillance programme was to underpin safe trade, an obvious prerequisite was that an epidemiological unit must be removed from the programme should a positive result be detected in that unit following laboratory testing. Such a result was obtained in respect of Ballinakill Bay in 2011.

The Irish surveillance programme started with 19 surveillance areas. Since 2010 testing has revealed that five of them were infected and must be removed from the programme. The bays are Gweedore, Drumcliffe, Ballinakill, Oysterhaven and the Shannon Estuary. As new positive findings arose, new decisions were issued by the EU Commission. As newly-infected areas were removed from the national programme, the legislation was modified to reflect these findings. Newly-infected areas were also detected in Northern Ireland and Great Britain since the programme began in 2010.

Clinical disease is not required for an epidemiological unit to be removed from the programme. In other words, a single molecular result constitutes a positive finding which requires removal from the scheme. If it were not the case, then any trade out of the area in which the positive test was confirmed could potentially be responsible for disease spread either within Ireland or further afield.

As indicated, five bays have been removed from the Irish surveillance programme since it began in 2010. A positive finding at Ballinakill Bay necessitated its removal from the surveillance programme in 2011. It is important to note that the current legislation provides for no option other than to remove the bay from the surveillance programme following the detection of one positive oyster in the bay.

Once a bay is removed from the surveillance programme, the relevant competent authority no longer has any legal basis for restricting trade into the bay. This is the basis of the agreed EU programme and applies equally in all member states who participate in the programme. In the case of Ballinakill Bay, if the Marine Institute had continued to restrict trade following its removal from the programme, a legitimate challenge could have been taken by other operators in the bay who wish to import stock from France. Such imports were not allowed while the bay was in the surveillance programme.

The very complex situation in Ballinakill was fully recognised by the institute. Instead of simply removing the bay from the surveillance programme and immediately allowing importation of stocks from France, the institute invested significant efforts into encouraging growers to voluntarily restrict trade with France for that season while testing continued. The objective was for the institute to gather more scientific data that would be used to inform a voluntary path forward for all stakeholders.

Specifically, the institute was faced with a situation where certain growers wanted to bring in stock from France, which could not be legally prevented, and others wanted to go back into a surveillance programme that was not legally permissible. Instead, the institute tried to encourage stakeholders to consider the results obtained which was only one positive out of almost 900 animals tested using very sensitive methods. It encouraged stakeholders to consider the findings and to reach an agreement on a code of practice for the bay that the institute would support with testing and advice. It is understood that while this has not been actioned by the stakeholders to date, an initial meeting may be scheduled for the coming weeks.

The action taken by the institute in Ballinakill had been agreed by the EU Commission. The institute has made considerable efforts to encourage the stakeholders to agree a code of practice. An agreement to a code of practice could potentially, after a number of years, provide data upon which the virus free status at Ballinakill could be reinstated. The institute has offered scientific advice and laboratory testing to support the approach.

Ireland's reputation as a producer of top quality seafood is predicated on the implementation of a sound regulatory system that has the confidence of the public in general and the EU Commission. The Minister has indicated that he is satisfied, in the circumstances, that the correct approach is being adopted for the benefit of the entire industry. The reply was appropriately long for such a detailed and complex issue.