The foot-and-mouth crisis is estimated to cost the tourism industry over £200 million, excluding the impact on air and sea carrier receipts, the House was told.

If the current situation continued until August, the estimated potential loss of overseas tourism revenue could rise to at least £500 million, the Minister for Tourism, Sport and Recreation, Dr McDaid, added.

He said that while the Taoiseach and the Minister for Finance had confirmed that compensation for tourism interests was not possible, he believed a more practical approach was to put in place an aggressive international and domestic tourism marketing campaign, supplemented by measures to help companies to trade out of any temporary financial difficulties.

Outlining a series of measures already taken to boost the industry, in the light of the foot-and-mouth disease, he said his Department and Bord Failte were keeping the situation under close review with a view to making appropriate further adjustments, in consultation with the industry, to marketing and promotion activities planned for the year.

The Minister was responding to a Fine Gael private member's motion calling for the establishment of a special task force to work with an economic subcommittee of the Cabinet on the impact of the fall-out from the foot-and-mouth disease.

The party's spokesman on public enterprise, Mr Jim Higgins, said tourism was taking a terrible hit from the crisis.

"Tourist interests are hurting badly. Instead of St Patrick's Day celebrations kick-starting the season, all parades were called off, hotels, guest houses and tour buses lay empty and idle," he said.

Mr Charles Flanagan (FG, Laois-Offaly) referred to a "disturbing" report in The Irish Times about the movement of livestock in the exclusion zones on both sides of the Border. "The movement appears not to have been an isolated case, but was substantial in nature," he said.

The Labour spokesman on enterprise, trade and employment, Mr Pat Rabbitte, said there was no longer an excuse for the Government speaking with a "forked tongue", adding that unless there was unity of purpose behind a considered balanced strategy serious damage would be done to the tourism industry.

"It is clear that Americans have been adversely influenced by television footage of burning pyres in rural England and by the irrational fear that somehow there is a risk to human health and safety in this part of the world.

"We have been doing too little to counter these mistaken impressions," he said.

Earlier, during Finance questions, the Minister, Mr McCreevy, said that if the outbreak remained relatively limited in extent and duration the economic and budgetary impact would not be significant.

Attempts to predict the impact were "highly conjectural", but in the event of a serious outbreak he would not disagree with the estimate by commentators that economic growth could fall by up to 1.5 per cent this year.