Customers ignoring warning on boned cuts

"I've been eating it all my life, I'm not going to stop now," said Ms Mandy Lawlor from Sallynoggin in Dublin, holding up a bag of fresh beef ribs. She was one of many sceptical consumers who chose to ignore the Government's recommendation not to buy boned beef. "I think they're just trying to turn us all into vegetarians," she said.

While supermarkets decided to remove the bone from all cuts, it was a case of business as usual at many butchers throughout the country.

"It's immaterial whether I sell it on the bone or not. Only about 5 per cent of my beef sales are on the bone," said Mr Larry Fenelon, a butcher in Stillorgan, Dublin. "But if a customer wants it then we'll supply it."

Mr Liam Clyne of Clyne Bros, Ringsend, said: "Irish customers are intelligent. If they look beyond the headlines they'll realise the risk of contamination is minute. You've a better chance of getting hit by an asteroid."

Many butchers said the warning was unnecessary for Irish beef as it was produced under safe and natural conditions.

"The Government was too slow reacting to the first BSE scare so they thought they had to react quickly this time when there was only a whisper of a problem," said Mr Padraig Metcalfe, manager of Mick Doyle's Meats in Dun Laoghaire.

He said that he sold up to 20 Tbone steaks and a number of rib roasts on Saturday despite the Government's advice. "People aren't taking the warning seriously. If they were on the edge between buying lamb chops and beef, perhaps it might sway them. But it'll only be a short term thing," he said.

Mrs Claire Murtagh, from Loughlinstown in Dublin, would "think twice" about buying boned beef. "You don't like to hear these kinds of warnings. They make you nervous. But I think it's like anything, if you take it in moderation, it won't do you any harm."

Mr Brendan Bohn from Glenageary said the warning "wouldn't stop me from buying a T-bone" in a butcher's shop or a restaurant.

Restaurants continued to offer T-bones and roast ribs of beef over the weekend.

A spokesman for Captain America's steakhouse on Grafton Street in Dublin, said it had over 600 customers on Saturday and no one mentioned the scare.