The Food Safety Authority has widened its ban on Belgian products thought to be tainted with a cancer-causing chemical.
Irish consumers are warned to avoid Belgian chocolates and cakes, sauces, ice-cream, pasta and beef products and any foods containing these ingredients.
The products were added to a list which advised the public not to consume Belgian poultry or egg products because they might contain a carcinogenic dioxin.
A decision to extend the list to items such as Belgian chocolates and yoghurts, sold widely in the Republic, was taken after the European Commission expressed concern that Belgian cattle might be capable of passing on the dioxin.
Cattle on as many as 416 Belgian farms were thought to have consumed animal feed which contained the substance.
The United States has decided to ban the importation of all EU pork and poultry products. This trade is worth about $245 million a year, with the Republic exporting £5 million of pork products to the United States annually.
The IFA said it hoped this decision would be temporary and described the US response as "out of proportion" to the risk.
The Department of Health and Children issued a fresh alert to retailers to remove products containing the Belgian ingredients.
This could spell disaster for the small group of Belgian chocolate retailers and importers operating here. Mr Ben Lannoye, the managing director of Flandria, which supplies a large number of shops with Belgian chocolate, last night expressed his shock at the decision to ban the product.
Another popular Belgian brand, Leonidas, could also face problems as it operates several franchise stores around Dublin.
The Department of Agriculture said it had banned imports from Belgium of live animals and agricultural products, although it admitted that "very small quantities of cattle, pigs and poultry" had been imported from that country in recent months.
The Minister, Mr Walsh, said his Department was tracing and detaining all relevant imports of Belgian products and animals.
He urged importers holding stocks of products who have not already contacted his officials to do so immediately. He said no animal feed had been imported from Belgium.
Small shops selling meat were notably empty in Brussels yesterday, as shoppers headed for supermarkets, where they were sure
stocks of chicken, eggs and pork, suspected of dioxin contamination, had been removed.
The Irish Shop on Rue Archimed announced proudly that its eggs did not come from any of the farms suspected of using the contaminated feed, and an Irish butcher up the road was doing a healthy trade in Irish meat.
The deepening crisis is a disaster for Belgium. Chicken and eggs are used in about 800 different products, ranging from the Belgian chocolates to frozen meals and baby food.
Belgium's Prime Minister, Mr Jean-Luc Dehaene, left the Cologne summit early yesterday to face the growing political crisis and public outrage at home.