Farmers will be allowed to sell their cattle at livestock marts from June 18th if there are no further outbreaks of foot-and-mouth disease before then, the Minister for Agriculture, Mr Walsh, announced yesterday.
Following a meeting of the expert group which has been advising him on foot-and-mouth controls, the Minister said farmers would be allowed to assemble cattle for sale to other farms or for export at marts from June 1st.
He said that while normal cattle sales could resume from marts on June 18th, the sale of sheep through marts would not be allowed and his officials were continuing to take 180,000 blood samples from the national flock.
Agreement, he said, had been reached with Spain which was now prepared to accept young Irish cattle if they were shipped directly there providing there was a market for them. He said difficulties remained using France as a stopover point for exports to mainland Europe. Ireland had asked the EU's Standing Veterinary Committee to try and work out a system whereby this would become possible.
"There is a market for young Irish cattle in Spain and it is now up to the trade to arrange direct transport with the ferry companies to do so," he told RTE's Farm News programme.
Mr Walsh also said that he had arranged with the Lebanese authorities to seek an early resumption of the live trade with that country.
Other control adjustments yesterday included the easing of a restriction in which farmers had to hold animals they purchased from another farm for 20 days to a period of seven days.
The Minister announced that from June 1st, multiple pickups of cattle from a number of farms for slaughter under permit, would be allowed and that the use of mart weighbridges for consignments of animals would be allowed provided the animals were not unloaded.
The Minister also decided that on welfare grounds, there could be a controlled resumption of sheep shearing from May 28th.
The Irish Co-operative Organisation Society, representing the marts, welcomed the announcements, as did the Irish Cattle Traders and Stock-owners Association and the Irish Farmers Association.
Mr Tom Parlon, the IFA President, said farmers were eagerly awaiting the return to normality. The ICSA president, Mr Charlie Reilly, said he hoped that the relaxation of restrictions would lead to a reopening of the export trade.
Restrictions which had been placed at lunch-time yesterday on the Galtee, Mitchelstown, plant, where a pig was suspected of being infected, were lifted late yesterday.