The EU does not yet have adequate means to protect its people from international threats to health, including the threat of SARS, Ireland's EU Commissioner, Mr David Byrne, has said.
Speaking to The Irish Times at the weekend, Mr Byrne said the EU did not have powers to order infected or disease-carrying persons into quarantine.
This was an important shortcoming, he said.
Individual member-states could quarantine citizens, he said, but the EU had no powers to do so.
Mr Byrne pointed out that, during the foot-and-mouth crisis, the EU had been able to order restrictions on the movement of animals but it could not now do so if there was a SARS epidemic in Europe.
His concerns were echoed yesterday by Dr Joe Barry, a public health doctor in the eastern region and vice-president of the Irish Medical Organisation (IMO).
Dr Barry said a failure by health service employers to roster public health doctors to work around the clock had left the State unprepared for any possible SARS outbreak.
The State will be left even further exposed if a planned strike by all 270 public health doctors goes ahead next Friday.
The Department of Health yesterday urged the doctors to return to talks with the Health Services Employers Agency (HSEA).
The HSEA said it was willing to return to the Labour Relations Commission.
However, the IMO's industrial relations director, Mr Fintan Hourihan, said there needed to be a willingness on the part of the HSEA to "seriously engage" on the issues of concern to the doctors before they could return to talks. These issues include pay and 24-hour rosters.