Procedures for the BSE testing of all cattle for slaughter over 30 months old will be put in place in early January, the Minister for Agriculture, Food and Rural Development, Mr Walsh, announced yesterday.
The announcement came as talks continued between the Minister's officials, the Food Safety Authority (FSA) and the company which operates the Enfer prion test, which can detect the disease.
Mr Walsh said he had been advised that as many as 750,000 animals would have to be tested annually to ensure Irish beef met the highest safety standards.
"That, with all the other controls we have put in place, should mean that our beef is BSE free," said the Minister.
However, the EU Commissioner for Health and Consumer Protection, Mr David Byrne, said yesterday that no EU country should advertise its beef as being free of BSE.
Speaking on RTE, he acknowledged that Ireland had imposed strict measures against the disease but he said no guarantees could or should be given.
A spokesman for the FSA said the commissioner was scientifically correct in what he was saying. However, he said the controls in place in Ireland dealing with the exclusion of meat and bone meat from cattle feed, the clinical tests carried out in factories, the disposal of risk material and other checks meant Irish beef was safe to eat.
The president of the Irish Creamery Milk Suppliers Association, Mr Pat O'Rourke, said it was time to let science give the necessary assurances to the beef consumer. He told his organisation's annual general meeting in Limerick he was advocating that Ireland take additional measures over and above what was being decided by the EU. "The consumer is entitled to this guarantee and if we move quickly on this we will be able to supply markets which will be lost to others," he said.
Mr O'Rourke estimated the overall cost of such a test would be about £6 million, on a rate of £15 per test on each animal.
"While some of the cost will be recovered by EU funding, the remaining cost in total should be paid by the Exchequer, as I believe this test will safeguard a vital national commercial interest," he told the conference.
Meanwhile, the impact of the recent BSE scare in France and the first cases of the disease in Germany and Spain have sent the beef markets into a downward spiral.
A spokesman for the Irish Meat Association, which represents Irish meat exporting plants, said the traditional European markets for beef were "as good as closed".
He said beef was still going into Britain but there was little movement elsewhere as beef consumption had more or less halted in some European countries.
While few cattle were on offer at marts yesterday, some factories were dropping the price of animals over 30 months by 2p per lb, effectively cutting prices to below 80p per lb.
At a meeting of farmers in Abbeyleix, Co Laois, last night which was attended by the Minister, Mr Walsh, the Irish Farmers Association president, Mr Tom Parlon, said farmers finishing cattle this winter would need 92p per lb to break even.
That figure, he said, had been supplied by Teagasc and had been independently costed.
"The price per animal has dropped by as much as £75 per beast in the last three weeks," Mr Parlon said.