Minister outlines legal moves to halt ‘catastrophic’ spread of ash dieback

Forestry owners are being placed on high alert for signs of Chalara fraxinea, the Ash Dieback disease which has destroyed forests across Europe.

A campaign by the Forest Service, Teagasc and the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine shows images of the signs to look out for. These include shoot dieback, elongated angular stem lesions which are often diamond-shaped, and foliage wilt in which black or brown leaves look dead but remain on the tree.

Minister of State Shane McEntee has met IFA leaders to brief them on the legal measures he has introduced, in cooperation with authorities in the North, to prevent the spread of Ash Dieback disease.

While the Government has a no-compensation policy for those affected, he has assured land owners that it will not stop direct payments to farmers affected by control measures. Reforestation of removed trees will be grant-aided.

“This could be catastrophic, but we must remain cool and calm, and be ruthless in dealing with it and work together,” Mr McEntee said when he addressed the Seanad on the disease threat this week.

In his meeting with the IFA, Mr McEntee explained that under the regulations, ash wood will be allowed into the country only if it is from areas certified as free from Chalara ash die back, if kiln-dried to less than 20% moisture content, or if the outer round surface (including bark) has been removed.

Imports of saplings are not allowed, unless they are accompanied by a plant passport certifying that they originate from a disease-free country or part of a country. There are also passport controls on the movement of ash across the island of Ireland.

The department acted swiftly when the disease was found in a forest in Co Leitrim in October. The ash disease was in a consignment of 30,000 plants imported from continental Europe and planted on 11 sites. Trees on these sites were cut and destroyed by burning.

Up to 20,000 others in close proximity to the infected consignment were also removed.

Ash Dieback has been found at 200 sites in Britain, including five in the North — in Co Down and Co Antrim.

The Department of Agriculture said that, given the scale of the threat and proximity of the outbreak, it faces a battle to keep the Irish crop disease-free, but Mr McEntee claimed Ireland’s island status gives the forestry sector a fighting chance.

“We are an island and we have been able to escape other diseases because of that,” Mr McEntee told the Seanad this week.

Meanwhile, foresters are on alert for the spread of another disease — Current Season Needle Necrosis, which affects Christmas trees, causing needles to turn yellow, brown and then drop off, and which has been found in Britain.