The Department of the Environment may restrict or ban the hunting and capture of wild birds should the avian flu reach western Europe.
Minister of State Batt O'Keeffe said the department was also considering the closure of nature and wildfowl reserves and national parks.
He told the Dáil that the time and scale of such actions "will depend on ongoing assessment of the level of risk to be addressed", but the State was "on red alert".
The Minister was responding during questions about the Irish response to the avian flu.
In the past 10 days six mute swans and cygnets were found dead in Kilcoole, Co Wicklow.
"Three foxes were also found dead in that location," he said. "A postmortem examination and virus isolation test are being carried out by the department on a cygnet carcass. Nothing positive has been found and a final result of those tests will not be known for approximately 10 days."
Fergus O'Dowd (FG, Louth) said: "It is essential that we act. The reality is that it is unlikely we will keep avian influenza out of this country. It is already in the UK."
Mr O'Keeffe said, however, there was no evidence of avian flu being prevalent in Britain, as the parrot that died in quarantine there "tested negative for avian influenza".
Government backbencher Billy Kelleher (FF, Cork North-Central) said there seemed to be a "blasé" approach being adopted to the potential difficulty and he asked when would wildfowling be banned.
Mr O'Keeffe replied that Ireland had quarantine laws and the EU "operates as an individual unit".
EU Ministers were meeting and a decision was imminent. The department was on red alert and all necessary precautions would be taken.
Labour's environment spokes- man Éamon Gilmore asked how many suspicious cases had been detected and sent for testing.
Ciarán Cuffe (Greens, Dún Laoghaire) expressed concern about the importation of wild or exotic birds to Ireland, and asked "what practical controls can you put in place, what tests can be carried out and what staffing exists to supervise the importation of such birds?"
Mr O'Keeffe said no cases had been detected, although there were some suspicions. "But from all the tests that have been carried out there is no evidence of the existence of avian flu ."
