`THE meat industry faces a total shutdown by the middle of next' week because of the refusal of renderers to accept offal from Tuesday unless they get Government aid. Up to 10,000 jobs are at risk in what is, to date, the most serious crisis facing the meat industry in the continuing BSE crisis.
The renderers, who process offal from the plants, claim to have lost £25 million in the past two weeks because a ban on the use of bone meal by the pig and poultry industries has prevented them from, selling it at home or abroad.
Because they have no outlets, renderers are threatening not to handle the weekly waste from the industry 12,500 tonnes of innards, blood and other products from slaughtered animals, known in the trade as "green offal".
While there is little slaughtering of cattle at factories, spring lamb and pig processing is now intense as demand for white meat has increased dramatically since the BSE crisis began over a fortnight ago.
Meat plants have no facilities to store this material, which has the potential to create an environmental and health hazard if untreated.
Last night the Minister for Agriculture, Mr Yates, said he would meet those involved in the dispute as soon as possible and appealed for the co-operation of all concerned.
Earlier the Fianna Fail leader, Mr Bertie Ahern, called on the Minister to act decisively to prevent a close down of the beef processing industry. He pointed out that the British government is paying £200 per ton to renderers to dispose of offal and burn meat material.
The Irish Farmers' Association president, Mr John Donnelly, warned the Government that the entire industry was on the brink of closing down.
"I have been inundated with calls from farmers, the meat industry and the renderers desperate to find a solution to the current crisis," he said.
Mr Donnelly said the Government should make an appropriate response to the Irish meat industry crisis with either Brussels or national funding for the renderers.
He also called for greater action by the Government to reopen the Middle Eastern markets for live cattle and beef. Some 1,600 Irish cattle are still aboard the Galloway Express, excluded from the Egyptian market since March 29th. Mr John Horgan, the Irish exporter, left Cairo on Friday, having paid the Egyptian navy to put four days supply of feed and water on the vessel.