The Government should accelerate culling of old cattle to rid the national herd of BSE, according to the Food Safety Authority of Ireland. It also called for a new focus on "BSE hot spots" where the disease is most pronounced.
The FSAI's chief executive, Dr Patrick Wall, said what was needed was a two-pronged approach to the eradication of the disease, by using the existing slaughter for destruction scheme and an accelerated cull now that these problem areas had been identified.
He was speaking following identification of the BSE hot spot areas on Friday by a leading epidemiologist who addressed a Fine Gael seminar in Dublin.
Dr John Griffin, of UCD's veterinary college, noted there were more infected animals in Monaghan, Cavan, Wexford, Limerick and parts of Cork than there were in other parts of the State.
"We now have identified that the disease is in older cows and we must get them out of the system in order to give consumers the assurances they need," Dr Wall said.
"I am telling farmers now that they must not wait for the Department [of Agriculture] to increase the price they are paying to farmers for cows. Go ahead now and put them into the destruct scheme," he added.
Older cows at the end of their lives were totally devalued because of BSE, so farmers should act now, Dr Wall said.
"The second part of the approach is for the Department to now work on the information they have on the problem areas and with the aid of the farming community, set up a cull scheme for this problem group of cows."
Farmers would know if their animals had been exposed to contaminated meat-and-bone meal prior to 1996 and would also know if they had fed their animals pig or poultry food which contained meat-and-bone meal.
"The epidemiologists have identified the areas and the herds and these should now be targeted. We must go after them from a consumers point of view and from a marketing point of view," he said.
"The mainland European countries are now at the stage we were at in 1996 and we risk losing that advantage if we do not move now and do what has to be done. The French have already identified the problem and are culling," he said.
Dr Griffin said at the seminar the nature and spread of the disease had changed since it was first identified in Donegal and Cork in 1989. Cavan and Monaghan accounted for close on one-third of all cases in the State.
The hypothesis was, he said, that the Cavan/Monaghan area had a very high level of pig and poultry production and this could mean the cattle in these counties had been exposed to meat-and-bone meal.
Other areas with higher than national average levels of BSE included Wexford, Limerick and parts of Cork. He was convinced the overall level of the disease was decreasing.
He said if a cull was being implemented it should be targeted at animals aged five, six and seven. Younger animals which had not been exposed to contaminated meat-and-bone meal should not have the disease. There were also fewer cases in animals outside this age group.
He said there was a much higher level of the disease in dairy herds than in suckler (beef) herds, and in 60 per cent of the cases found in suckler herds had been purchased from outside sources and may have come from dairy herds.
Cohort animals (i.e., animals reared with BSE cases and probably fed the same rations) were at greatest risk and these were actively tracked down and tested for BSE by the Department. There have been 15 imported cases of BSE into the Republic.