§ MR. A. O'CONNORI beg to ask the President of the Board of Agriculture whether his attention has been called to the fact that the Local Authority in Derry has for years past rigidly maintained a cordon (which includes part of the county of Donegal) for the protection of the cattle trade of the Port of Derry; that for the past ten years this district has enjoyed entire immunity from foot-and-mouth disease; that the cattle trade of the County of Donegal almost entirely consists in the export of store cattle; and that the recent action of the Board of Agriculture and of the Scotch Local Authorities in prohibiting the removal inland of store cattle landed in Greenock and Glasgow from Ireland has almost entirely stopped the export cattle trade of Donegal; and whether he will consider if the district included in the Derry cordon might be declared a district free from disease, and the cattle landed from Derry at Glasgow or Greenock be permitted to be railed inland on complying with the necessary regulations to prevent infection on the journey?
§ MR. CHAPLINI am aware of the precautions which were taken by the Local Authority of Derry; but I felt it necessary to prohibit the removal inland of animals landed in Greenock and Glasgow, not because I have any reason to believe that foot-and-mouth disease exists in Derry, or, indeed, in any part of Ireland, but because a serious outbreak has occurred in Glasgow, and if movement inland from Glasgow and that neighbourhood had been allowed the risk of spreading the disease would, of course, have been extremely great. I am perfectly alive, however, to the importance of the Irish export cattle trade both to Ireland and to Scotland also; and I hope very shortly, and in the absence of any further outbreak at Glasgow, to be able to make arrangements for permitting the cattle which are landed at Greenock and Glasgow to proceed to their destination inland under certain restrictions.