The controversial killing of badgers to control the spread of bovine TB in cattle is to continue in the medium term.
The programme will continue, despite claims by a British animal welfare organisation that more than half the badgers in the State have been slaughtered in the past 10 years and only 100,000 remain.
The Department of Agriculture and Food has sanctioned the killing of badgers in blackspot TB areas in 1,214 square kilometres in Cork, Donegal, Kilkenny and Monaghan between 1997 and 2002.
The publication of a scientific paper on the impact of their removal in the areas, to appear in the scientific journal Preventive Veterinary Medicine, has reopened the controversy.
Yesterday, Dr Elaine King, chief executive for the British-based National Federation of Badger Groups, said the Four Area Badger Study suggested that badger culling only reduced TB in cattle if every badger was exterminated.
"Even if you exclude the moral and political implications of such a strategy, the Irish study does not show whether the effect is large enough to warrant the massive economic cost of the slaughter."
She said the Irish study was similar to the "proactive" badger culling currently being implemented in the so-called Krebs experiment in Britain, which found that removal of badgers actually increased bovine TB infection.
"We have been advised that the Republic of Ireland has slaughtered more than half its badgers over the last 10 years, reducing the population to less than 100,000 badgers," she said.
"Badger densities are significantly lower in Ireland compared to Britain. Yet in 2002, the last year for which data are available, 6.5 per cent of Irish cattle herds were under TB restriction.
"In Britain, which has three times more badgers than Ireland, 3.6 per cent of herds are under movement restriction," said her statement.
"Ireland's futile badger slaughter has simply confirmed that badger culling will never be a solution to the problem of bovine TB," said Dr King, whose organisation supports over 80 local voluntary badger groups throughout Britain.
The Minister for Agriculture and Food, Ms Coughlan, is expected to announce a continuation of the badger slaughter in the medium term today.
The report on the Four Area Badger Study, drawn up by the centre for veterinary epidemiology and risk analysis at University College Dublin (UCD), has shown a drop in confirmed herd restrictions of 60 per cent when badgers are removed.
Since the introduction of the slaughter scheme, mandatory annual testing, tighter controls on animal movements and the early removal of reactor cattle, the number of cattle failing the TB test has fallen in each of the last six years.
Figures in the last annual report from the Department have shown a decline in reactor numbers from 45,000 in 1998 to 28,000 last year, and an estimated 25,000 this year.
The Department has also been involved with UCD in the development of a vaccine against tuberculosis in badgers, but this will not be available in the short term.
The debate on the role of the spread of bovine TB by badgers has been taking place for the past 30 years in Britain.