The Minister for Agriculture, Mr Walsh, has insisted that there is no foot-and-mouth disease in the Republic at this point. Condemning as "treasonous" newspaper headlines that "it is here", he said more than 60 countries wanted to ban Irish produce because of "extremely negative headlines".
The Minister added that "there have been no symptoms and there has not been a clinical case of the disease but we are treating the situation as if that were the case".
The chief veterinary officer and other senior officials had spent considerable time reassuring customers worldwide, he said.
However, Fine Gael's agriculture spokesman, Mr Alan Dukes, pointed out that with the confirmation of the disease in south Armagh, it was now on the island of Ireland. "It behoves us to act now as though an outbreak of this disease has been identified in this jurisdiction."
Mr Padraic Mac Cormaic (FG, Galway West) said what was most significant was that the farm in south Armagh "was used as a base for the importation of lambs from Britain via Northern Ireland".
The lambs were killed in Ireland and then sold as Irish lambs. Even if the disease never became a problem in the Republic, he said "the exposure of this sham whereby Irish factories kill British sheep and export the meat as Irish lamb will do untold damage to Ireland's good name".
The Athleague plant was "not an isolated case" and factory owners co-operated in this practice. The Department of Agriculture had turned an "obvious blind eye" to this problem which had struck a serious blow to food exports, he said.
Mr Dessie O'Malley (PD, Limerick East) said it was a failure of the regulatory authorities. He said a departmental vet at the Athleague plant inspected the sheep before they were slaughtered. To say there was uncertainty "is not good enough".
"The laid-back lackadaisical approach to so much of what happens in the agriculture sphere and particularly in relation to animals is amazing, and apparently it has been acceptable here for a very long time".
Labour's Agriculture spokesman, Mr Willie Penrose, called for anybody who broke farm production rules to be treated like an law-breaking company director and "disallowed from pursuing that livelihood". The livelihoods of too many good farmers, who obeyed the rules, were at stake.
"If company directors can be disqualified from holding directorships for a number of years, why should a similar penalty not apply to any farmer who purposely injects an animal in order to gain compensation?"
During an emergency debate on foot-and-mouth disease, the Minister confirmed that there were 33 cases in Britain, and he said sheep may have been illegally imported into the Republic for slaughter at the Athleague plant in Co Roscommon. Mr Walsh also confirmed that a criminal investigation was under way. He also appealed to any farmer who received sheep, imported from Britain in February or who had knowledge of such imports, to come forward.
Commending organisations who had voluntarily cancelled public events, he pointed out that Dublin Zoo had closed and the OPW had suspended all work on arterial drainage.
The Minister defended the Government's handling and said that measures were in place but it was the responsibility of every citizen to co-operate. He said the Department's website was as good as any he had come across, it was updated twice daily and details were given of the disease.
This followed repeated criticism of the website compared to the British Ministry of Agriculture's site, which opposition deputies described as comprehensive and clear.
Mr Penrose said that people at the centre of the movement of sheep had serious questions to answer. Stressing the devastating implications of even one case of foot-and-mouth disease Mr Penrose said that there were more than 200,000 jobs in the agri-food sector and and 45,000 members of SIPTU alone were directly involved in the food and allied industries.
There was a gap between the official statements made by the Minister and the practices on the ground. Calling for the Taoiseach to take the lead, he said the "ring of steel in the Border counties clearly has holes".
The Minister should issue mandatory directions to people and not adopt a "softly softly approach".
Mr Walsh should take whatever emergency measures were necessary, he said.
Mr Trevor Sargent (Green, Dublin North) said the huge increase in the transportation of animals since the 1967 outbreak in Britain had contributed to the latest threats. "We must take stock of the necessity for some of these journeys. It has been stated that the same animals were transported back and forth and we need to look at this issue more closely to ensure this practice is minimised."