ARMY checkpoints and Customs and Excise mobile patrols will replace some of the existing Garda BSE checkpoints on the Border, the Department of Agriculture confirmed last night.
But the Department spokes man denied that the redeployment of gardai to Dublin and other urban centres to help deal with the drugs problem will render Operation Matador, to keep Northern cattle out of the State, any less effective.
He said there was no question of scaling down Operation Matador, which is costing the Irish taxpayer £1/2 million a week.
"There has been a major review of the operation and it was decided that in certain areas static checkpoints can be replaced by mobile patrols or substituted by Army checkpoints," he said.
Operation Matador, he said, would remain in place until the BSE crisis was resolved in the UK because the integrity of beef produced in the Republic had to be maintained.
The spokesman said that, up to the end of August, 762 cattle had been seized by gardai, Customs officials and Department staff. Of these, 277 were released after investigation.
In all, he said, 210 animals have been destroyed and a further 275 animals are awaiting destruction or further investigation.
In a related incident, 200 boxes of beef, bogus Department labels and £50,000 worth of meat had been seized in Co Monaghan last May. The meat, he said, had been destroyed, but no prosecutions were being taken.
A group of farmers in the Kinawley area of Co Fermanagh, complained yesterday that the BSE cordon has been seriously hindering their farming operations and that farmers with land on both sides of the Border are particularly hard hit.
Mr Sean McGovern, Springtown, Kinawley, said that one farmer will be going to the High Court in Dublin to try and recover 28 head of cattle seized by the authorities in the South when wandering on a roadway at their farm.
"Cattle know nothing about borders they only know their own farms and it's unfair they are seized when clearly there is no intent to smuggle", he said.
He added that the Southern authorities were also refusing to allow farmers graze land they may own in the Republic and this made life increasingly difficult for smallholders in the area.
A Department spokesman said many complaints had been received from Border farmers about the tight controls, but it could not allow animals cross the Border even if they were still on their own farms.