Irish beef to be sold as BSE free

With beef sales in Europe plummeting because of BSE, a plan to market Irish beef as BSE free is being put in place urgently.

With beef sales in Europe plummeting because of BSE, a plan to market Irish beef as BSE free is being put in place urgently.

Talks will continue this week between the trade and the Department of Agriculture and Food to have the Irish developed Enfer test carried out on all animals for slaughter over 30-months-old.

The Minister for Agriculture and Food, Mr Walsh, will proceed with what he called "a further enhanced BSE testing regime", in advance of the EU measures to be introduced in January.

This would mean Ireland would be the only European country in a position to market its product as BSE free and could give the State a competitive advantage, protecting its £1.5 billion sales abroad.

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The announcements by the German and Spanish authorities of their first cases of BSE will lead to a further decline in beef consumption. The beef factories said on Friday that falling demand in the EU and in other markets had seen the weekly kill of cattle drop from around 40,000 to under 25,000, as Europeans take beef off the menu.

France, where beef from a herd where BSE had found its way into a supermarket chain, has been hardest hit and sales have slumped. Ireland supplies 50,000 tonnes of beef to France annually.

Because Germany is the most health-conscious of all EU markets, beef sales look set to plummet. Ireland sells nearly 30,000 tonnes of beef there annually.

The EU moved on Friday to support the trade by increasing from today the export subsidies by 15 per cent on male beef and cattle and 130 per cent for female cattle and beef. These subsidies are paid on exports leaving the EU.

Mr Walsh, said the increases were worth 5p for male beef and 9p for female and should help producers and exporters.

However, Mr John Smith, the chief executive of the Irish Meat Association, said the export refund increases would not solve a growing problem.

Mr Smith, whose organisation represents the beef factories, said that while he welcomed the increase, some mechanism would have to be found to remove the mounting surplus of beef from the markets.

He said demand for Irish beef in Italy had dropped by 30 per cent and in France by 20 per cent.

The Irish BSE figures, which have been issued on the last Friday of every month for the last 18 months, were not released last Friday by the Department. They are expected on Thursday.

Ireland has had 551 cases of the disease since 1989 but 104 of those have been recorded so far this year. There were 95 last year, 83 in 1998,80 in 1997 and 74 in 1996.