The Government accepted recommendations yesterday that meat and bonemeal made from slaughtered animal waste be used in the manufacture of cement or energy.
Publishing the report of an intergovernmental committee, the Minister for Agriculture and Food, Mr Walsh, said the Government had decided to encourage the development of suitable projects within the public and private sectors.
The main findings of the committee, which were revealed last year in The Irish Times, recommended that meat and bonemeal be incinerated and incorporated into cement manufacture here.
Disposal of the annual output of more than 100,000 tonnes of meat and bonemeal here became a major problem when its use was banned in feed for farmed animals, to prevent the spread of Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy in 2000.
Storage of meat and bonemeal which is rendered from the waste from animals, excluding the organs which might carry BSE, has already cost the Irish taxpayer nearly €150 million in the last three years as most of it has to be stored or sent abroad for incineration.
The build-up of meat and bonemeal (MBM) began in 2000 when a ban on feeding it to pigs and poultry was introduced. Currently there are almost 200,000 tonnes of MBM in stores awaiting disposal abroad, and this will cost the Government an estimated €34 million.
While in the period following the MBM feed ban, the Exchequer supported the livestock and meat sectors by subsidising the rendering and destruction of the product, as did most other EU member-states, the full costs of dealing with MBM have now been passed back to the industry.
Publishing the report yesterday, Mr Walsh said the cost was particularly high for the Irish livestock and meat sectors because of the absence of domestic disposal facilities.
"The product must therefore be exported abroad for destruction. The most common means of disposing of MBM in other member-states of the EU is in either the energy generation or industrial sectors," said a statement from the Minister.
Mr Walsh noted the conclusions of the committee that co-incineration of MBM in the manufacture of cement or in electricity generation offered a safe and efficient means of disposal.
He said all Departments and State agencies represented on the committee were anxious for progress to be made in this area, as indeed were all those involved in the livestock area.
He pointed out the wider benefits identified by the committee if MBM could be used to replace fossil fuels, which would lead to a reduction in Ireland's greenhouse gas emissions.
The issue of using meat and bonemeal in energy production has already caused controversy.
Last April the long-running dispute ended between Coolmore Stud and National By-Products over the development of a meat and bonemeal incinerator near the Co Tipperary stud.
The Ronan family, who control National By-Products, undertook to withdraw their application to the Environmental Protection Agency for an integrated pollution control licence for the incinerator to generate electricity.
Attempts to build an incinerator in Nobber, Co Meath, also ran into difficulties with local residents, as did a plan to dispose of MBM in the Edenderry peat-fired electricity plant in Co Offaly.