There was more bad news for the beef industry yesterday. It was learned that live cattle exporters were no longer purchasing animals for the lucrative trade in Lebanon because French shippers were dumping their beef there.
Mr Alan Dillon, of Dillon Livestock Exporters, confirmed that his company could no longer compete with the give-away prices offered by French and German exporters since the BSE crisis struck mainland Europe.
"We are currently not buying any animals and we are adopting a wait-and-see attitude. Surplus animals from mainland Europe are being dumped there and we cannot compete," he said.
Lebanon, he said, had provided a very good trade for livestock shippers since 1997, and an average of 75,000 animals a year had been shipped there in 1998, 1999 and this year.
"There is no ban or anything like that. It is simply a matter of market forces. We just cannot compete with the dumping," he said.
Mr Dillon said there was a specific market for high-grade quality animals of between 300 kg and 650 kg in Lebanon. He hoped that it could resume as soon as the EU markets came into balance again.
The live trade has provided a limited alternative over the last three years to the beef factories and has been an important competitive factor in beef prices since the last BSE crisis in 1996.
There was little trade in beef yesterday when it emerged that the weekly kill at factories last week was down to just 32,000 animals, less than half of the normal kill for this time of year.
Industry sources said yesterday that the kill could be as low as 20,000 this week because of the problems in the Egyptian and continental markets.
The Irish Veterinary Union came out yesterday in support of the control systems on BSE in Ireland, declaring them to be "the most comprehensive in the world and acknowledged as such".
Mr Fintan Graham, president of the IVU, said veterinary surgeons were deeply concerned about the recent developments in international markets and wanted to express their strong support for their farmer clients and others who were involved in efforts to maintain consumer confidence in Irish food.
The Association of Craft Butchers of Ireland, representing family butchers, said Irish beef on sale in butcher shops was safe to eat and safer than it had ever been.
It said this was the view of the Food Safety Authority of Ireland which had issued an assurance on the safety of Irish beef in recent days.
Beef sold in family butcher shops was from young animals, typically 18-20 months old and generally well under the 30month limit, it added. No case of BSE had ever been detected in an animal under 30 months and current reported cases were in much older animals.
Figures issued by the EU yesterday on the reported levels of BSE in European countries since 1987 showed that there has been a total of 180,449.
However, 179,216 of these have been in Britain, and the remaining cases in other member-states. Ireland, with 550 cases (to the beginning of this month), had the second-highest levels.
Portugal with 479 cases was in third place, France with 169 was fourth and Belgium, 18, came next.
Germany recorded six cases, Denmark two, Italy two, Luxembourg one and the Netherlands six.