Allowing imports from Scotland of logs which have not been debarked is putting millions of euros worth of spruce plantations under threat, chair of the Joint Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture Jackie Cahill TD has warned.

A bark beetle-free zone in Scotland is the only area from which Ireland imports logs which have not been debarked or sawn.

“We have had the experience of ash dieback and we do not want to see another disease coming in,” Cahill told a sitting of the committee last week.

“This beetle is moving up through the UK and it is going to take over Scotland in a matter of time. In the interests of trying to protect our hugely valuable Sitka spruce, we should have a ban on any barked timber coming into the country.

'Valuable crop'

“We have such a valuable crop here, so we should not let it in. We will not even be able to replant if that beetle comes in. It stays.

“You cannot just clear-fell and start again. If the beetle is there, the land is useless for the production of timber going forward.”

Minister of State Pippa Hackett commented that she was “not too sure how such a ban could be introduced” and that “at the moment, we are satisfied with the biosecurity arrangements and the pest-free zone that exists”.

"We know it is spreading further and further north up through the UK. We ensure bark is imported from a pest-free area and we check everything that comes in very thoroughly," the minister added.

Biosecurity

Barry Delaney of the Department’s forestry division said that safeguards are in place to help mitigate the risk posed by Scottish log imports.

“Before they are exported, there have to be surveys of that particular area to ensure that it is free from all the pests we are free from in Ireland,” Delaney explained.

On the basis of the inspection, a phytosanitary certificate is issued.

“We receive that certificate and then inspect all the consignments that come in, predominantly through Wicklow and Cork,” the official stated.

Independent TD Michael Healy Rae stated that even though these biosecurity measures are in place “checking for a beetle could be like looking for a needle in a haystack”.