Arrangements had been finalised for the tagging of sheep, the Taoiseach told the House. Mr Ahern agreed that strong action was required to deal with sheep-smuggling.
He was replying to the Labour leader, Mr Ruairi Quinn, who said all members of the House had been circulated with figures by the tourism industry that up to £33 million and 1,315 jobs had been lost, with a further 20,000 jobs expected to go, because of the foot-and-mouth threat.
"Can the Taoiseach give the House now a categorical assurance that the Government will pursue vigorously systems to ensure that every sheep is properly tagged and that anybody suspected of engaging in smuggling will have the full rigours of the law brought to bear upon them, including the application of the Criminal Assets Bureau, which has been successful in other areas of criminal activity in this Republic?"
Agreeing, Mr Ahern said he could assure Mr Quinn and the House that in the past few weeks every effort had been made by senior people involved in the Garda investigation to trace what were believed to be 60 missing sheep.
"They have not given up on that from the time they first received information.
"They believe they were possible imports from the UK and the precautionary slaughterings followed from the information which the gardai had discovered.
"There have been slaughterings in Laois, Meath, Carlow and Wexford over the weekend because of the possible connections with Meigh and evidence suggests that the sheep in those premises may have been smuggled south via the Collins premises in Meigh, although it is not clear how many of the slaughtered animals were on the Collins premises.
"On the tagging issue, I understand the Minister has finalised the arrangements in that regard and is now proceeding with the tagging."