The EU is winning the fight to eradicate BSE, Mr David Byrne, the European Commissioner for Health and Consumer Protection, has said.Ruling out the introduction of BSE tests on cattle at 24 months, rather than the mandatory tests at 30 months on animals going into the food chain, he said he believed only one or two cases of BSE had turned up in animals at 28 months.
"There is no real pressure on for changing the threshold date to 24 months, and I have resisted this pressure because I thought it was wrong and was advised there was only marginal to no extra measure of safety in doing so."
He said the money that would be spent on lowering the test age could be applied to other areas of food safety, such as the prevention of salmonella, which killed 200 people a year in the EU.
He added that the introduction of active surveillance to seek out cases of BSE in animals not bound for the food chain had been important in establishing the true level of the disease.
"The incidence went up a bit because active surveillance is a hell of a lot better than passive surveillance, and was critical in determining where the risk to the public lies," he said.
It appeared that the disease was on the wane in Ireland, and it was the expectation of the European Commission that Ireland had turned the corner in relation to eliminating BSE.
"We believe it started to dip some time last summer or autumn. Unfortunately, there were findings in a couple of younger animals, but that also happened in the UK \ was probably caused by some leakage in the use of infected meat and bonemeal," the Commissioner said.
"I would hate to say it was over but the incidence is certainly dropping, and it seems to me that we have identified what was causing it. We have taken that off the market."
Mr Byrne ruled out allowing meat and bonemeal to be used again for inclusion in pig and poultry rations.
However, he did not exclude the possibility of the ban, imposed in 2000, being lifted to allow meat and bonemeal to be used to feed fish.
Eight new cases of BSE were reported here this week, bringing the total number so far this year to 55, compared to 88 cases at this time last year.
All of the cases were in older animals, the youngest being in seven-year-old cattle in Co Tipperary and Cork and the oldest in a 13-year-old beef breeding cow in Co Leitrim.