Vol. 480 No. 6
71 Mr. Howlin asked the Minister for Foreign Affairs whether his Department has been in contact with the Indonesian authorities in relation to the serious environmental damage being caused by the lighting of forest fires for commercial reasons. [14744/97]
My Department has not been in contact with the Indonesian authorities on the matter raised by the Deputy.
Concern at the scale of the fires, at the serious accidents to which they may have contributed and at the potential economic as well as environmental repercussions throughout the region, all of which have been widely reported in the media, has prompted a number of bilateral offers of assistance to Indonesia in recent days.
While the Council of Ministers of the European Union has not considered the situation, I understand that the commission services yesterday assessed the information available from Commission offices in the region. My Department will consider carefully any information on the matter which the Commission may communicate to the member states as well as its proposals, if any, for action by the Council in response to it. In the meantime, it continues to monitor developments closely.
