THE British governments bombshell announcement of a possible link between eating mad cows and developing spongy brain disease probably cost the Irish beef trade and taxpayers millions yesterday.

Had a clear link had been established in the Commons between BSE (Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy) in cattle and CJD (Creutzfeldt Jakob Disease) in humans, Ireland's £2 billion beef industry would have crumbled, with enormous damage to the fabric of Irish society.

Negative publicity about red meat consumption anywhere in Europe leads to a dramatic drop in beef consumption and it is difficult, to regain lost market share. When the disease emerged in Britain a decade ago, due to feeding scrapie infected feed to cattle there, Ireland moved fast to ban the feeding of bonemeal to cattle, the sale of animal parts from which the disease might be passed on and the import of animals from the UK, except calves under six months.

That, however, did not prevent a huge international drop in beef consumption, as international buyers find it hard to differentiate between Irish and British beef.

Within months, the bulk of Irish, steer beef was being slaughtered, not the for lucrative markets of Europe, but for the EU intervention cold rooms. The North African and Middle Eastern live trades stopped.

As EU intervention stocks soared to their highest level ever, 1.2 million tonnes, the government here moved to allay the fears of customers and introduced a special slaughter policy.

In Britain, the authorities slaughter only the infected animals identified in a herd. This is not the case here.

WHEN a case of BSE is identified in an Irish herd - to date there have been 124 cases - the animal is taken out and slaughtered and the carcase destroyed. But in addition, all the rest of the herd is purchased and slaughtered as well.

Although there is no evidence that the disease of the central nervous system can be transmitted either from cow to calf or from animal to animal, the Government has already spent £11.5 million in buying and slaughtering 16,568 animals.

This in essence is a giant public relations exercise and it has been a huge success in reopening markets which were closed to Ireland in the early 1990s, causing a slump in the trade. Some would claim that the resulting reliance on intervention the sheer volume of cattle being slaughtered - made for difficulties in monitoring it and contributed to the Beef Tribunal.

Ireland's slaughter policy was further refined last January, when consumer groups here demanded that there should be microscopic brain examination of the remaining animals taken from a herd where BSE has been identified.

The effect of the policy has been, a reopening of the markets to Ireland. Last year we sold £205 million worth of beef to Britain, which is still our largest market, £360 million to the rest of the EU and £390, million worth of product to the rest of the world.

In addition, the cattle boats have been running again and in 1994-1995, carried over a third of all the beef animals available to non EU destinations.

Despite that and the setting up an Irish Food Board, An Bord Bia, which is market led and has done great deal to hold on to Irish beef markets abroad, the beef trade here is very sensitive to BSE scares.

Last autumn, for instance, there was a great deal of publicity in Britain linking BSE and CJD and some local authorities banned beef from school meals. The impact here was immediate. Exports to Britain, where one in five steaks eaten is Irish produced, fell by 10 per cent and Bord Bia had to work very hard to maintain market share.

There was a similar scare in Germany 18 months before and beef consumption there fell by a fifth. Ireland, despite its claim of having no indigenous BSE in the national herd, suffered accordingly even in a market where, unlike Britain, Irish beef is identified as being Irish.

That is the situation in relation to BSE in Ireland? Since 1989 only 124 cases have been found in the national herd of seven million animals.

Between 1986, when the disease was first identified, and November 1995, there have been 154,592 cases of the disease in the British national herd of 12 million animals.

In the Republic there were 15 cases in 1989; 14 in 1990; 17 in 1991; 18 in 1992; 16 in 1993; 19 in 1994; 16 in 1995; and nine so far in this year.

Of those cases, 15 were imported from Britain or Northern Ireland and one case occurred in an animal which was brought in from Denmark.

The majority of cases were identified in dairy herds, which accounted for 83 of the cases, with 19 cases identified in suckler herds and 20 in mixed dairy and other herds.

While it is clear that we certainly do not have a problem which is in any way comparable to Britain's, there is still the problem that all beef producers face, that beef consumption is dropping all over the developed world.

It is also clear that in order to promote Irish beef as being non British, Irish marketeers would have to indulge in a very negative campaign which would once again highlight a problem in beef, i.e. BSE.

In a sensitive Europe this is no the road to travel. However, by pointing out the good environmental conditions in which our animals are raised, our grass based system of production and very low levels of BSE, our markets can be defended.

The Food Board has a major task its hands and will need the resources to carry it out.