The European Commission will next week order up to 100,000 cattle in Ireland to be tested for BSE in response to a fresh outbreak of the disease in France. This has seen beef sales collapse and has renewed calls in Germany for a ban on beef imports.
The EU Commissioner for Food Safety, Mr David Byrne, will announce on Monday plans to expand random testing for BSE to include millions of animals throughout Europe.
Mr Byrne called yesterday for member-states to bring forward a plan for random testing of 170,000 cattle due to begin on January 1st next year. "I am now calling on memberstates to introduce the tests urgently and before this deadline. I am also calling on member-states to carry out more tests than legally required, with a focus on categories of animals which might be susceptible to risk of BSE," Mr Byrne said.
Earlier yesterday, the Minister for Agriculture, Mr Walsh, claimed that Ireland's £1.5 billion beef-exporting industry had not been harmed by the BSE crisis in France.
Asked to comment yesterday on recent decisions by some countries to ban Irish beef or livestock, Mr Walsh said none of the decisions had a commercial impact. "When the disease was first identified here, we put in place the most stringent controls. As a result of that, we are selling beef to 60 countries worldwide." While Hungary, which bought no beef from Ireland last year, has banned Irish and French imports, Russia has demanded that no meat from Cork, Limerick or Wexford be sold to it. Its ban currently applies to Monaghan, Meath and Cavan. However, since the collapse of its economy some years ago, Russia now takes only limited supplies of beef from Ireland.
