Ireland could face legal action by the European Commission over a partial ban on imports of British poultry following discovery of the deadly H5N1 bird flu virus in England, an EU official said today.
The Government announced on Monday it was not allowing imports of poultry from Britain for "gatherings and shows" as a precautionary measure.
The ban did not include poultry from the North. "Any ban in this case by an EU country against another EU member is illegal," a spokeswoman for EU health chief Markos Kyprianou said.
"We will be looking into this in more detail, but the procedure as you know is that any breaches of EU law can lead to infringement procedures being taken against that country."
The EU's executive arm issues up to two warnings to countries who fail to adhere to the bloc's rules and if they do not to respond positively, the case is brought before the European Court of Justice.
A spokesman for the Government confirmed that a "specific and restrictive" ban on live poultry from Britain was in place for events such as pigeon racing and agricultural shows.
He said Ireland "had acted within EU laws".
Many countries outside of the 27-member bloc, such as Japan and Russia, have banned imports from Britain following the discovery of the highly pathogenic bird flu strain on a farm in Suffolk in eastern England.
The European Commission described these bans as "unnecessary" and said it was satisfied with the measures taken by the British authorities.
A buffer zone with a radius of 1.8 miles (3km) has been created around the infected farm - run by Europe's largest Turkey producer, Bernard Matthews - with a further 4.5 miles (7km) under so-called targeted surveillance.
Meanwhile health experts in the UK monitoring an outbreak of bird flu were today checking whether a farm worker had contracted the disease.
The Health Protection Agency said the worker had been employed at the Bernard Matthews poultry unit in Holton, Suffolk, where bird flu was confirmed on Thursday.
Officials said the worker was undergoing hospital tests for the H5N1 virus. It is the second time in two days that doctors have carried out tests on people working at the farm.
Earlier today the HPA said a vet had tested negative for the virus after complaining of a mild respiratory illness.
He was admitted to hospital in Nottingham yesterday and immediately underwent tests to establish whether he was suffering from H5N1. The vet tested negative for avian flu and normal seasonal flu.