The main farming groups have reacted angrily to the ending of export subsidies on live cattle for slaughter outside the EU.
Last year, 11,690 live cattle were exported from Ireland to Lebanon. To date in 2005, 9,874 live cattle were exported from Ireland to the same destination.
The export refund was paid according to the weight of each animal and amounted to about €165 per head and exporters say they cannot compete in the international markets without it.
The decision to end the subsidies was ratified at the EU Beef Management Committee yesterday in Brussels.
The decision had been taken earlier in the week by the European Commission.
However, this was not ratified by the Council of Farm Ministers which met on Tuesday. Ireland opposed the decision at the Beef Management Committee meeting.
The commission's decision was endorsed with the help of Germany, the UK, Italy and Denmark.
Minister for Agriculture and Food Mary Coughlan said that the vast bulk of Irish live cattle exports are to European countries and would be unaffected by the adoption of an EU Commission proposal.
She said that in the last two years, exports of live cattle to third [ non-EU] countries only represented 5 per cent and 8 per cent respectively of total live exports from Ireland.
Mary-Anne Bartlett, director of Compassion in World Farming in Ireland, which had spearheaded the campaign against the live export trade, said that its ending from midnight was "a wonderful Christmas gift".
"We know that shipping live cattle to the Lebanon for slaughter subjects animals to a long and stressful journey only to face cruel slaughter when they get to their destination," she said.
"It is appalling that for many years, taxpayers had to support this inhumane trade. The ending of the EU subsidies that fuelled this trade is a real victory for animal welfare," Ms Bartlett said.
But the farm organisations said that the ending of the subsidies would kill the live trade.
The EU will allow export subsidies to continue on live cattle exported for breeding purposes.