Department of Agriculture officials are concerned over a possible second case of foot and mouth in the Republic after investigations on a Co Louth farm.
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Mr Joe Walsh -
ruled out vaccinations |
The farm is on the Cooley Peninsula, near where the first case in the State was found last week.
A Department spokesman told ireland.comtoday they were more concerned about this incident than anything reported in the country in the past few days.
He said if the results proved positive the Department would take immediate steps to impose "infected-areas" zones and slaughter estimations.
Vets in the area were also reported to be "very concerned" about the suspect sheep, which were immediately killed.
Speaking on RTÉ this morning,the Minister for Agriculture, MrWalsh, said: "If those results were to be positive, it would mark a new dimension and a more worrying scale of the operation, because there would be geographical spread to other parts of the country."
But he ruled out national herd vaccination to prevent the possible spread of the disease for a number of reasons. The EU gave Britain permission yesterday to begin vaccination.
"First of all, there are seven strains of this particular virus, and vaccination would only give immunisation against one of them," he said.
"Worst of all, for trade purposes we would lose our 'white country' very-high animal health status, which enables us to deal freely with over 60 countries worldwide in animal products.
"Britain are in the happy position of having a home market for their produce, whereas we are dependent on export markets for 90 per centof what we produce from the agriculture industry."