Just one ferry official and a couple of brown mats represented the national effort to prevent the spread of foot-andmouth into Ireland as I stepped off the Jonathan Swift from Holyhead yesterday.
I travelled by taxi into Anglesey across the Menai Bridge, where I should have driven over mats drenched in disinfectant, a precautionary measure which is part of the "exclusion zone" around the island harbouring the first confirmed case in Wales of the virulent disease. There were no mats.
There were no notices at Holyhead port to warn me and other passengers of the dangers of contamination, or of any precautions that we should be taking. There were no checks or disinfections carried out at the Welsh end of the trip. Only on arrival in Dublin port was I, among several hundred other passengers from Wales, made aware of the foot-and-mouth crisis. The lone Irish Ferries official faced the bemused huddle of foot passengers, and beseeched them to wipe their feet thoroughly on the mats as they stepped off the ferry. He asked anyone who had been on farmland or in contact with farm animals or livestock to make themselves known to Department of Agriculture officials at Dublin Port.
The group then walked across two large brown bristled mats drenched with disinfectant. Most barely wiped their feet at all, and I saw no one "making themselves known" to Department of Agriculture officials.
Cars had their tyres doused with disinfectant after they drove off the ship's ramps. I did not see any place for drivers to disinfect their feet before they got into their cars.
In Dublin, foot passengers coming ashore from the Isle of Inishmore yesterday afternoon were largely unaware that their movements could spread the disease, writes Sean MacConnell.
They told The Irish Times that an announcement had been made before they arrived to tell them there were new regulations to prevent the spread of the disease into the Republic.
They said there were no signs to indicate they had to report to Department of Agriculture inspectors if they had been visiting farms or had contact with animals.
While all foot passengers had to walk across disinfectant-soaked mats, a lone agriculture inspector monitored their arrival.
The disinfecting of commercial traffic was efficient and thorough.
However, camping and other motorised passengers were not being carefully monitored, although they too had to walk through disinfectant to get to their vehicles on the ship.