§ MR. DELANYI beg to ask the Vice-President of the Department of Agriculture (Ireland) whether he is aware that the introduction of the foot-and-mouth disease into Scotland is alleged to have been traceable to the importation of foreign forage; and whether he can say what steps he proposes taking to prevent the spread of the disease into Ireland through this source.
§ THE ATTORNEY-GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. CHERRY,) Liverpool, ExchangeThe Department are aware that the recent outbreak of foot and mouth disease in Scotland is alleged to have been caused by foreign fodder, but, so far as is known, no similar outbreak attributed to a like cause has ever occurred in Ireland. It would be a difficult matter adequately to enforce precautions against the possible danger of introducing disease through the medium of imported forage, especially in view of the circumstance that forage substances are also used as packing material for goods coming from abroad. The Department are not, in all the circumstances, at present prepared to say whether, so far as Ireland is concerned, any steps can or should be taken in the direction suggested in the Question. Need for steps of the kind would, moreover, seem the less apparent in view of the fact that the latest annual import returns show only one ton of forage as having been landed direct in Ireland from Belgium, the country supposed to be the source of infection in the Scottish outbreak.