The number of cases of Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (BSE) has dropped to 41 this year, 28 fewer than last year.
Announcing the figures yesterday the Minister for Agriculture and Food, Mary Coughlan, welcomed the continuing decline in numbers.
Last year the total number of cases was 69. In 2004 there were 126 cases of BSE with 182 cases in 2003, and 333 in 2002, the highest year on record.
The Minister said that it was clear the underlying trend remained positive. Ms Coughlan said the increasing age of animals confirmed with the disease showed the enhanced controls introduced in 1996 and early 1997 were proving effective.
The last two cases of the year were found in a 15-year-old beef producing cow in Co Louth and a nine-year-old beef producing cow in Co Offaly.
There was only one case of a younger cow - which was four years old - detected this year in the national herd in the intensive testing for the disease at meat plants and at knackeries.
Since 2001 all cattle destined for human consumption over 30 months are tested for the disease, as are all "fallen" (animals which die suddenly).
Up to the end of last year over 3.5 million tests have been carried out on cattle with an additional 655,000 tests carried out up to the end of October 2006.
The Republic of Ireland is one of the few countries where all animals in a herd will be slaughtered when BSE has been found, even though the disease cannot be spread from animal to animal.
All parts of animals' BSE specified risk material is removed when animals are being processed for food.
The disease is thought to have started in the early 1980s in Britain when diseased sheep brain was fed to cattle in meat and bonemeal which had been processed at temperatures which were too low to eradicate the the disease.