Despite the current foot-and-mouth crisis, prices for beef, sheep and pigmeat are quite buoyant because of the reduced supplies from the UK and the impact of the EU cull scheme, the Minister for Agriculture, Mr Walsh, said. Speaking yesterday at the launch of his Department's Annual Review and Outlook 2000/2001, Mr Walsh said it would be difficult to assess the outlook for 2001 as a whole because of foot-and-mouth.
"The outlook for sheep and pigmeat is quite good but I am concerned about the cattle market in the autumn after the purchase for destruction scheme ends and when pent-up supplies come on the market," he said.
Mr Walsh said his officials had estimated that as many as 450,000 animals would flood the market in the late summer when the foot-and-mouth crisis ends and the EU's purchase for destruction scheme ends in June.
"A key point for us is to regain overseas markets closed as a result of BSE developments elsewhere in the EU and we are investing a great deal of effort in this." He said that a special task force charged with advising on what action should be taken had been established to draw up a report for the Government under the chairmanship of one of his assistant secretaries, Mr Bart Brady.
That report would be available in about a month but in the meantime he had made the Commission aware of Ireland's concerns about the autumn and the need for appropriate support - particularly in the area of export refunds.
"Key to the market recovery for beef is the reopening of the Egyptian market and we are working very hard on that. Last week we had Egypt's Minister for Commerce here to look at our operations," he said.
Mr Walsh said that the Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (BSE) crisis had been far more traumatic for the agricultural sector than foot-and-mouth disease.
The brunt of the foot-and-mouth crisis had been borne by the people of Co Louth and the farming community in the Cooley peninsula, in particular, over the last eight weeks.
He said that the response of the Irish people to the foot-and-mouth crisis had been absolutely outstanding and the Department had responded in a highly effective way to it. However, he warned, the crisis was not yet over.