Minister for Agriculture Mary Coughlan yesterday rejected claims that her department had done little to prepare for an outbreak of avian flu in the State.
Labour's Mary Upton TD had accused the Government of sitting on its hands and jeopardising public health and safety by failing to implement the recommendations of an EU report into how member states should react to a major outbreak of avian flu.
She accused the Minister of "stonewalling" on the matter when it was raised in the Dáil last week, and had not even referred to the report in a general response about avian flu.
Ms Upton had raised the issue following World Health Organisation (WHO) concerns about the possible spread of the potentially deadly strain of H5N1 from human to human in Indonesia, where seven members of one family have died.
In a statement last night, Ms Coughlan said she noted that WHO scientists had indicated no evidence had been found of genetic reassortment with viruses from other species or of any significant mutation of the virus. In addition, the WHO had not raised its pandemic alert level.
The Minister for Health and the HSE had contingency arrangements in place for dealing with the threat of this virus to humans.
Her statement said an extensive range of measures were in place to detect the virus if it arrived here and if necessary to deal with any outbreaks that might occur in poultry.
Advice was issued on an ongoing basis to flock owners and to those travelling to and from affected areas.
She added that contingency planning was an evolving situation, and full account was taken of new information as it emerged. The level of preparedness continued to be fine-tuned, as evidenced by the slaughter exercise that took place last week.
Ms Coughlan also referred to the setting up of an expert advisory group, and said her department had taken a very proactive approach.
She said it was fully engaged with the EU Commission and all the agencies that would be involved in dealing with an outbreak in Ireland.