Poultry farmers have been told to drain all ponds on their land and not to rear waterfowl and other fowl together.
In a Department of Agriculture and Food briefing on bird flu yesterday, Michael Sheridan, deputy chief veterinary officer, said such precautions were necessary to prevent the arrival of the disease.
Apart from the possible danger to public health, journalists have been told that an uncontrolled outbreak of the disease here could lead to severe damage to the €360 million poultry industry.
It could lead to the destruction of the 2,000 poultry flocks in the State and severely affect the 6,000 people who get their living from poultry production and processing.
Stressing the need for vigilance, Mr Sheridan said the last time high pathogen avian flu had struck Ireland was in 1983.
There had been a number of low pathogen avian flu types in the State, the most recent serious outbreak occurring in 1998 when there were 29 outbreaks over a four-week period.
He confirmed the finding of low pathogen avian flu in wildbirds in the European surveys of 2003 and 2004.
He said the risk of the arrival of the potentially deadly H5NI strain of the disease by wildbirds here was low because of the migratory patterns of wildfowl in and out of Ireland.
"However, there is always the possibility that it could arrive here and our job will be to ensure that it does not infect poultry," he said.
Mr Sheridan said that were there to be an outbreak of the flu, the farm involved would be restricted and the department's laboratories would have confirmation of the disease in a short time.
Samples would have to be sent to the European Central Reference Laboratories in Purbright in Britain for confirmation or otherwise of samples.
He indicated that the State had the capacity to test for the disease using DNA and Eliza tests but it could be some months before the new laboratories would be fully equipped because of the move from Abbotstown to a new site near Maynooth.
Reaffirming that the risk of a spread of the disease from poultry to humans was unlikely, principal officer Dermot Ryan said risk assessments were being carried out all the time.
If an outbreak occurred, the infected flocks would be destroyed by using carbon dioxide and the birds' carcases would be rendered to meat and bonemeal. In other cases they might be buried.