The complex international trade in food has meant that last year Ireland imported 47,000 tonnes of chicken, even though we are self-sufficient in the meat.
Irish producers generated 119,000 tonnes of poultry meat at home and Irish consumers ate almost the same amount of chicken.
However, nearly three-quarters of the 47,000 tonnes of chicken imported, mainly from the UK and the Netherlands, was re-exported, normally in processed form.
Central Statistics Office records show that we imported 1,200 tonnes of chicken from Thailand which represented 2 per cent of imports. Of this, 650 tonnes was in frozen packs, 450 tonnes was processed and 100 tonnes was in chilled form.
Most of the State's imported chicken came from Britain and Northern Ireland.
Last year the total imported from there was 24,600 tonnes, representing 52 per cent of poultry imports.
A total of 9,250 tonnes, or 19.5 per cent of imports, came from the Netherlands, which is a major importer of chicken from Thailand.
According to An Bord Bia, the Irish Food Board, Irish poultry meat exports last year were valued at €180 million. It said that nearly two-thirds of the total poultry exports over the year were in processed form.
The UK continued to be the main market for Irish poultry exports, accounting for approximately 80 per cent of total sales.
The Department of Agriculture and Food said poultry sold fresh in unprocessed form in retail establishments here was virtually all Irish produced.
However, much of the chicken used in catering and food processing would be imported and then re-exported again.
European processors are able to buy poultry from Asia and Brazil at about 40 per cent less than EU-produced chicken and the trade is driven by economics.
Production costs in Asia are much lower than in the EU and production is carried on at density levels which would be unacceptable in Europe.
However, the poultry plants where chicken is processed for the European markets are regularly inspected by EU vets and have to conform to EU standards.
Chicken from Thailand has been at the centre of controversy here before, when a consignment from the Netherlands was found to be contaminated in early 2003.
Some chicken fillets imported into the State had been found to contain cattle and pig proteins. An investigation by the Food Safety Authority of Ireland (FSAI) uncovered the animal DNA in 17 out of 30 sample fillets imported from the Netherlands, much of which was of Thailand origin.
The investigation also found the fillets were being "bulked up" with water to make them look bigger. Some contained just 55 per cent meat.
Later that year, the FSAI had asked the European Commission to carry out an investigation into the use of collagen fibre in prepared food.
The FSAI was the first agency in the EU to detect that collagen fibre, extracted from the inner layer of cattle or other animal hides, was being used on chicken being imported into Ireland. The FSAI said it feared that collagen fibre could be sourced from the inner hides of cows which may have died from Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (BSE) or animals which had left the human food chain .
An estimated 500,000 tonnes of chicken is imported into the EU annually, about half of it from Asia and the rest from Brazil.
The European Commission recently decided to remove the testing for growth promoters in chicken imported from Thailand. It is expected that Thailand-produced chicken will not be back on European supermarket shelves for at least five months.