Pressure was growing last night for an easing of restrictions on the movement of farm animals after preliminary tests on a suspect case in Co Tyrone proved negative.
Farm leaders urged the Minister for Agriculture, Mr Walsh, to allow movement or sale of animals between farms because of a build-up of stock. Animals can only move off-farm for slaughter under the current rules.
A senior Cork official of the IFA, Mr Sean Clarke, said these restrictions should be eased to prevent farmers from taking the law into their own hands.
Mr Clarke, who is the IFA's regional development officer, said he was afraid farmers would trade illegally because of the financial burden they were under as a result of being unable to move their animals.
The ICMSA put forward detailed proposals yesterday to deal with the problem by allowing movement from farm to farm by permit. The ICMSA president, Mr Pat O'Rourke, said tremendous pressure was building up at farm level for controlled animal movement soon.
He said individual farmers had problems with lack of fodder, poor weather and grass growth conditions, severe overstocking on farms and financial pressures.
Fine Gael's agriculture spokesman, Mr Alan Dukes, called on the Minister to meet the farm organisations with a view to allowing controlled movement to prevent a build-up of animals on farms.
Figures provided yesterday by Bord Bia showed the average prices paid for sheepmeat have increased by 25 per cent this year and that export plants have killed 3 per cent more lambs this year compared with 2000.
The figures also showed that relatively tight supplies of cattle had increased prices paid to producers. They also said that, to date, 180,000 cattle have been slaughtered and destroyed in the EU Purchase for Destruction Scheme put in place to remove surplus beef because of the BSE scare.
One of the first people to be told yesterday of the negative test result in Co Tyrone was Mr Walsh, who was telephoned by his opposite number in the North, Ms Brid Rodgers.
The possibility that the disease had spread from Meigh, south Armagh, to a cattle farm over 40 miles away had created fear in the farming and business communities, who had an anxious wait for the result.
While a great deal was at stake for the whole island, the fact that the tests have proved negative has removed a real threat to farmers and processors in the North, who stood to lose their EU export status, which has allowed them to trade normally in areas outside the Newry and Mourne district.
The Rev Ian Paisley, chairman of the Northern Ireland Assembly's Agriculture Committee, attributed the result to the power of prayer.
Mr Martin McGuinness, the Sinn Fein MP for the Ardboe area, yesterday visited the region and said the sense of relief was palpable.