ONE of the biggest security operations in decades was being planned last night to prevent large numbers of cattle being smuggled into the State from the North over the BSE scare.
Gardai, soldiers and Customs officers were being prepared last night to be drafted to the Border to seal off roads in response to an upsurge in cattle smuggling.
Cattle from Britain and Northern Ireland's herd, numbering almost 1.5 million, are now unsaleable anywhere in the world because of an EU ban on UK beef exports.
However, there was a furious reaction last night from the British Prime Minister, Mr John Major, who has forced the President of the EU Commission, Mr Jacques Santer, to reconvene the EU Standing Veterinary Committee to reconsider the ban, which the UK believes is unjustified by scientific evidence.
British officials claimed the EU Agriculture Commissioner, Mr Franz Fischler, had not secured the required consent from the EU executive to implement the ban.
A Dublin, the Border plan and a strategy on how to persuade the Egyptian government to admit nearly 6,776 Irish cattle on four ships at or en route to the port of Alexandria, and to reopen the £80 million Libyan market, will top the agenda at this morning's meeting of the Cabinet.
The Taoiseach is making arrangements to telephone President Mubarak of Egypt over the two Irish ships anchored in international waters outside Alexandria port. According to the shipper, Mr John Horgan, fodder will run out later tomorrow on one of the vessels, The Friesian Express.
Another vessel, The Kerry Express, has also arrived in Alexandria with 1,963 cattle on board. Two other vessels with 3,110 Irish animals on board are due in the port soon.
Garda sources reported that all available personnel were last night on checkpoints along the Border and between 500 and 600 extra gardai were expected to be drafted to the Border area.
The operation is being co-ordinated by the new Garda regional commander for the north western area, Assistant Commissioner Tom King, who is based in Sligo.
Details of the operation are to be worked out at a conference in Sligo this morning, with the expectation that all Border roads will have checkpoints to deter smuggling.
Gardai along the Border reported an upsurge in cattle smuggling yesterday as the BSE scare spread throughout Northern Ireland after it was reported that the Northern beef herd was being included in the EU ban on UK beef exports.
According to sources last night, there was an immediate increase in smuggling and seizures during the day as dealers began moving cattle out of the North. It was reported that cattle pounds in the Border area were filling last evening with seized cattle.
With no significant outlet for the North's herd other than Britain, where confidence in beef has been shattered, there are growing fears in the Republic that animals would be smuggled into the South in large numbers.
The Department of Agriculture promised "a blitz" on smuggling. It said it would do all in its power to prevent animals coming south in order to protect the integrity of beef from the Republic, where there have been only 124 cases of BSE compared to more than 1,600 in the North's herd.
A spokesman for the Department of Agriculture said recent regulations put into force by the Minister, Mr Yates, under which factories must refuse animals unless the supplier is properly identified to them, would help stem the threatened flow of smuggled animals.
Meanwhile British scientists yesterday reported two more cases of patients infected with a new strain of Creutzfeldt Jakob Disease which has been linked to BSE in cattle.