More contaminated animal feed has been imported into Ireland, the Department of Agriculture and Food confirmed yesterday. It is the second such incident this month.
A 4,600-tonne consignment of maize gluton which was imported into Ringaskiddy, Co Cork, on November 12th was found to be contaminated with fragments of bone.
All bone is banned from cattle feed.
The discovery of the contamination took place four days after the consignment arrived in Ireland from the United States.
This followed the dispersal of 350 tonnes of the material to seven different compounders.
This second animal feed contamination scare comes at a very sensitive time for the industry with Ireland's first confirmed case of vCJD, the human form of bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE).
Scientists have linked the consumption of beef from animals suffering from BSE with the human form of the disease.
BSE is thought to have been caused by the contamination of cattle feed by meat-and-bonemeal which was made from the brains of sheep infected with a disease called scrapie.
A recall of the cattle feed which was imported into Cork was launched immediately contamination was discovered, and that is continuing, a Department of Agriculture and Food spokesman said at the weekend.
He said that the maize gluton had been incorporated into cattle feed at a ratio of 5 per cent, and the recovery of feed from the farms to which it had been sold was continuing.
"I want to stress that there is no danger to animal or human health, and the matter has been notified to the EU."
He said the latest incident comes as the recall concludes of tonnes of cattle feed contaminated with bone. This was imported sugar beet pulp from Germany.
"We are satisfied we have recovered all that we can. In fact we got more cattle feed than we expected."
The spokesman said it faced a major difficulty because it could not stop the free movement of goods when they are imported into the country.
"It takes four to five days to get the results of sampling, and at that stage there is the real possibility of materials being widely dispersed," he said.
"We cannot interfere with the free movement of goods under the EU treaties, but we are looking at ways of addressing these problems with the feed industry, which has been working in very close co-operation with us."
He said that the German authorities had said it believed the first consignment of feed in which "terrestrial bone" was found earlier this month had been caused during the transporting of the sugar beet pulp in barges in Germany.
"They are telling us the contamination probably took place during transport," he said.
The first consignment of sugar beet pulp of 1,760 tonnes arrived in Dublin on October 18th and the second on October 22nd, when 2,281 tonnes arrived.
Nearly 400 tonnes was sent out to compounders before the problem was identified.