The Minister for Agriculture Mr Walsh today warned the Republic can not be complacent over the seriousness of the foot-and-mouth crisis and must remain on full alert.
Speaking on RTE today, Mr Walsh said while no cases have been confirmed in the Republic, the country must remain on "full-alert" given the contagious nature of the disease.
Commenting on criticism over the speed and co-ordination of Government action, Mr Walsh said the controls put in place within hours of the confirmation from Essex, along with the response by Government agencies and voluntary organisation, were far more comprehensive than those imposed in Britain or other European countries.
Fine Gael are among those critical of the Government's handling of the foot-and-mouth crisis.
In a keynote speech at a scaled-down party conference in Dublin last night, the party leader Mr Noonan said: "Fine Gael has been critical of the lack of vigour in Government action on foot-and-mouth disease and we have called for a more urgent and focused approached to this grave threat.
"We will continue to be vigilant and we will support every realistic measure that can be taken to avert the disaster but we will not hesitate to criticise anything that appears to us to be slipshod or to diminish the effectiveness of our defences."
Mr Walsh conceded the foot-and-mouth crisis had revealed weaknesses in the system regulating the transportation of livestock including the need to tag sheep and pigs - a measure which had been strongly opposed by the Irish Farmers Association (IFA).
Following talks with the IFA, Mr Walsh said he will be introducing a new tagging system for sheep.
Mr Walsh said the vast majority of people are co-operating and showing caution over what he called "a national crisis".
"We do not have foot-and-mouth in the country, we do not have symptoms of it. If we are lucky, and we need to be because it is such a contagious disease, we will keep it out of the country. We have to learn lessons from it and those lessons will be put into effect immediately."
Mr Walsh ended by saying there are very strict penalties for flaunting the law and the Government will insist that the full "rigorous of the law" be applied to individual or company who breach the law.
Also speaking on RTE readio today, the Minister of State at Department of Agriculture, Noel Davern, criticised the British government for their failure to deal adequately with what he called the "foot and mouth epdemic".
Mr Davern said that the British authorities' response to the crisis was not satisfactory.
Also, Fine Gael leader, Michael Noonan, has criticised Mr Walsh, for being "soft" on those he termed the "real culprits" who may have introduced foot and mouth disease to this country.