I cannot resist suggesting that I have yet to find legislation that is perfect, even though I accept that in this area our record in protecting our animal and plant health status has been particularly good relative to other nations. I will go no further than that.
I support the Bill but, like many other speakers, it is the broader aspects I will speak about. I feel it was because of the importance of agriculture to our nation that we joined the EC in 1973. There were other considerations of course, such as being part of Europe geographically, but the implications for our agricultural sector and agri-business sector was a paramount consideration in opting for Europe and proceeding down that road and being a full and equal member of the Twelve which we are now. As an aside, the figure of 20 per cent or 21 per cent was given in relation to agricultural exports. Our net agricultural exports are nearer to 40 per cent when you consider the sourcing of the raw material. The point being made by all of us is that there is an enormous contribution made to this country, to our exports, to our GNP, by agriculture and the agri-business sector. I am extremely concerned about what I see as the levelling down of standards in the Single Market when it comes to animal and plant health status. There is a growing concern in the country among the agricultural scientific and veterinary sections generally about what the final decisions will be in this area.
Incidentally, the Minister is very welcome this afternoon. It is nice to see a Minister of State here in his own right, in control of his own brief with legislation and not just part of the rent-a-Minister syndrome that I am afraid pervades this House and which has done so through many governments over the years. When they cannot find the Minister, a Minister of State is shoved into the House. I once used the expression "wheeled in here with a script thrust into his hand" and some of my colleagues on the other side of the House still remind me of that statement. The Minister is very welcome with this Bill that deals specifically with his own brief. I congratulate him on it because we have no difficulty with the specifics of the Bill this afternoon.
In his speech the Minister said: "At the present time the community is considering the plant health controls which will operate in the Internal Market after 1992." It is now March 1991. We have until the end of 1992 to know what surprises, what bag of tricks the mysterious bodies in the Community have who are considering the plant health controls. You could add in the animal and plant health controls that will operate in the Internal Market after 1992. None of us can over-emphasise the importance of the outcome of these considerations and it is to that I would like to direct my few words this afternoon.
Who in the Community is doing the consideration? It is very important that the profound national interest, as one Senator referred to it, in relation to the Irish position is fully understood by those doing this consideration. The outcome of these negotiations and the final deal that will be made in relation to the animal and plant health controls that will operate in the Internal Market impact on every aspect of agriculture and the environment in this country. Why should we have to accept a levelling down of standards? Can we insist on the rest of the Community coming up to our standards in this area? It is little to ask for as a nation that joined the Community primarily because of what we had to contribute in the agricultural and agri-business arena.
The Department of Agriculture and Food and the officials have done an excellent job in protecting the health status of this island in terms of animal and plant health status in the past few decades. Are we to be asked now to abandon all the controls at our borders and ports? Whatever we accept and whatever we insist on in terms of standards in this area in post-1992 Europe, we should ask our colleagues in the northern part of this island to stand with us because it is as an island we should treat this issue given the importance of island status in animal and plant health rather than just in relation to the Republic versus a UK situation. When we talk about animal and plant health status, it is in the context of an all-Ireland position and I am sure Members would accept that.
Is there any reason why we should accept a levelling down of standards? Is there not an extremely good case to be made for totally different treatment of Ireland, and perhaps also the United Kingdom — I will let them make their own case — to be used as a foundation stock island for the Community post-1992? With the best will in the world and with the strictest controls in the world there will be outbreaks of animal and plant diseases on mainland Europe, as there have been over the last decades, outbreaks of different diseases which, mercifully, we have escaped in the main. If there are epidemics of any kind on mainland Europe is there not a tremendous advantage in having a foundation stock in the Community that will be free of that particular disease? In other words, the very fact that we are the last island nation in the Community given the Channel Tunnel, could we not perform a major service to our EC colleagues by being treated as a foundation stock island in relation to animal and plant health generally?
That is the case I put this afternoon. It might not be completely in the spirit of the Internal Market, and I accept that is probably what the Minister will tell me, but as I understand it generally and from what the Minister said this afternoon, the matter is still under consideration. My plea is that our island nation status should get particular recognition not just because it will protect the animal and health status of this nation now but because we have a particular role we could play in the Europe of the future in the event of any major epidemic or disease in either the animal or plant health fields. I think we could offer a unique service to the European Community in this area and I would ask the Minister to pursue that line as strongly and vigorously as possible. If we do not achieve that situation in terms of the final outcome of the considerations that are going on in this area at the moment, I am quite sure the Department of Agriculture and Food will find it very difficult to climb down and abandon the safeguards they have had in place for so many years.
I had occasion in the past few years to draw up a policy on pig production and in researching it I was looking at the whole area of increasing our breeding stock in relation to pigs. There is one area that fascinated me and that is that the corona positive pigs were not allowed to be imported into this country because we were corona free in Ireland. The corona virus in pigs equates to the common cold, nothing more and nothing less, it is not a big deal. It can be specifically tested for now which it could not in the past. I think it was confused with an enteritis or a similar disease. You could not specifically isolate corona positive from other problems in pigs. Now you can and that has been possible for some time, but there is still a ban on importing pigs even from the UK if they are corona positive. From 1 January 1993 all the corona positive pigs in the world can land on our shores and, to my understanding, I do not think the Department of Agriculture and Food will be able to do a thing about it given the road we are travelling on and the changes in controls that appear to be on the horizon in this area. That is only one example.
At the moment if you travel either to the UK or to the Continent with animals in a lorry be they cattle or horses or whatever, you cannot bring them back into the country with hay or straw on the lorry, with bedding on the floor of the lorry or any hay in the lorry. Obviously there are good reasons for that in protecting the plant health status of our country and I can understand that fully but all the controls in that area will be abandoned on 1 January 1993. I am talking about areas that would not even be headline grabbing. I am not talking about major diseases that really capture the media. These controls which are in place now for very good reason apparently will have to be abandoned because we have accepted blindly the fate of the Internal Market in relation to the animal and health plant status of our island.
I question severely the road we appear to be travelling. I know there are hundreds in this country like me who wonder if we will wake up some morning exposing the health of our animals and plants to all sorts of unacceptable risks. I think I borrowed that expression from the Minister's speech. He said "We are striving to ensure that any changes in procedure will not leave us open to unacceptable risks." We are with the Minister fully on that; any risk that reduces our standards is unacceptable. If the Minister agrees with that and puts it on the record today we will take tremendous comfort from the outcome of the negotiation that are going on in the Community in this area.
There are many other areas where problems have raised their head through different sectors of agriculture. Apparently it must be the same committee, or it is the same procedure, that is considering the plant health status of the Community post-1992 who are also looking at the veterinary status and the veterinary implications for the Internal Market.
In relation to horse production, EVA and CEM will not be notifiable diseases, if I am using the correct expression and I am subject to correction on that. They will not be among the diseases where we can prohibit importation. Again, that is a lowering of standards. There will be voluntary treaties and voluntary agreements entered into in relation to some of these diseases. Perhaps that is the avenue we could travel in relation to plant health as well. I know in relation to animal health that voluntary tripartite arrangements are being entered into. In fact, five nations are coming together to protect horse production. They were not able to get the relevant committees in the Community to accept their concerns in relation to certain diseases so they are entering into a voluntary code of practice, or a voluntary agreement, to protect production in the countries in question.
Will we look to this whole procedure of voluntary codes of practice to protect our island nation? I would like the Minister to point out to us in his reply who is considering the plant and health controls, what structures are they being considered through and who in our Department and in our Government generally has an input into those considerations and the line of the Government on the matter. I would like the Minister to tell the House the line of the Government in relation to the negotiations and considerations that are going on in this area at the moment. Are they taking a very strong line in not leaving us open to any unacceptable risks? Does the Minister consider a reduction in standards from the present level to be an unacceptable risk? Will he be pursuing a particular treatment for Ireland to become the foundation stock island of Europe in the event of outbreaks of diseases and, can he pursue that line with conviction, given our health status?
An interesting point was made by Senator Dardis when he referred to programmes of containment rather than eradication in many areas. The one blot in our copybook and the one area where we can be held to have failed in this country is in the eradication of bovine TB. We have managed to come to terms with most of the other diseases. We have managed to put in place controls at our borders and ports; generally speaking, thank God, we have been foot and mouth disease free and more or less free of Newcastle's disease. One could pick any disease across the whole range and see we have managed to contain or control it. However, for some reason, and we all understand the reason, bovine TB has defeated the best efforts of the Department of Agriculture and Food and I have to confess to date even the ERAD Board, I would think, would admit to making slower progress than they thought when they started off with the media headlines and the flurry of excitement when the Minister, Deputy O'Kennedy, set it up and threw millions of pounds at it. Despite the money the Government are spending on it and, despite the increased levies the farmers are contributing right across the board towards it, I wonder what progress we are making?
We can only wish them progress and success in an area that has defeated the best efforts of very good Ministers over the years. It is one huge blot on our copy book when it comes to holding ourselves out to the rest of Europe as an example of animal and plant health status and management of these problems generally. The whole area of animal and phytosanitary control concernes me and I think we will have other occasions on which to debate it if the Minister cannot give us assurances now with regard to the way we will be treated. Perhaps the Minister will come back to us when discussions are under way, or at a more final stage, to indicate how Ireland will be treated in the Internal Market in this regard.
I would like to turn briefly to another aspect, namely, the whole area of research. When it comes to insect and pest control research, the priority we give to research in this country leaves a lot to be desired. I am afraid the present Minister must stand indicated for the way Teagasc have decimated the research section of that body. Research and investment in modern technology will depend on the result of the investment today, in the past couple of years and the next few years. We have managed to halt most research programmes that were in the planning process, that were in the pipeline. There is a lead-in to all research programmes.
Unless we feel we are going to piggyback on the research of other nations, much of which may not be applicable to the conditions in this country, I do not know how the farmers and food producers today are going to get the service they deserve from the Department of Agriculture and Food in the years to come. By decimating the research programme and by Teagasc decimating their research section we are failing other farmers and food producers of the future. The years will slip by and by chopping off programmes, by choking them financially, the effect is not immediate. This Government may have come and gone but someone else will be picking up the results of the appalling decisions that have recently been made to axe research programmes.
I think it was Senator Murphy who talked about natural pest control. Unless we know what we are doing, we cannot advocate natural pest control. We cannot even advocate to the farmers of the future the levels of pesticides and insecticides they should use. We cannot determine the effect on the environment of the over-use of pesticides and insecticides. We cannot determine the effect on human health of the over-use of pesticides and insecticides. We cannot determine the effective withdrawal date or how long before slaughter or harvest the product can be used after being sprayed with the pesticide or insecticide. If we fail in this whole area of research we are failing the next generation of farmers and indeed the next generation of people in our country who will depend on food production by our farmers and indeed imported foods as well, and who expect the Government to be able to guarantee safety in these areas. We fail them by axing the research programme now and I am afraid this Government will stand indicted.
The economic unit in Teagasc has been totally abolished. One of the roles of the economic unit was to interpret for the nation the implications of different legislation and regulations and orders and directives, etc. coming from Europe and how they would pertain to agriculture, agri-business and food production. We have decimated the economic unit. We have reduced research to a point at which most programmes are not viable but have completely obliterated the economic unit in Teagasc. Again, perhaps, we are not getting the best advice and the best interpretation of the implications of certain regulations and directives in relation to the Internal Market. Can we be sure in regard to the considerations the Minister referred to in relation to phytosanitary and plant health controls generally that the implications for this country are being interpreted as they should?
I welcome the Bill. It is worthwhile and it deals with a very specific area. The broader canvas must be how we are going to treat this island nation of ours with its high animal and plant health status in the Europe of the Internal Market and whether we can make a case to become the foundation stock island for Europe and provide a particular service to our other European colleagues. That is my plea to the Minister this afternoon and I would dearly love to know his views, the views of the senior Minister and the Government's views as to how they will proceed in this most important area.