Andrew Doyle (Wicklow, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

The Senator referenced international best practice. Even by his own admission in respect of the Australian model, he said zero tolerance is not zero levels. The inference is that zero tolerance is zero tolerance of the infringement. Zero levels is slightly different. I believe we are on the same page here. We both want zero tolerance.

I refer to Senator Ruane's analogy. Dogs and animals interact with humans all of the time. Dogs brush off people's clothes when they are walking them, they put head collars on them and a thing on them. The human may not know they are contaminated. It is an airborne environmental issue. We have all sorts of airborne residues in our environment all the time.

I have had to fence off badger setts so that my cattle cannot get into where they tear out the soil because the spores in the soil can cause TB, which the Senator mentioned. There is cross-contamination and there are vectors, carriers and so forth. I will not go into that today but that analogy was used and it is the same thing. We may have zero tolerance, but zero levels are not practical or applicable. We are trying to establish no tolerance for levels that are above the tolerable level.