THE Government is to spend £2 million buying up stocks of meat and bonemeal used in animal feed until the nine rendering plants, which boil down offal bring their processing facilities up to EU standards.
Announcing the new regulations, which will come into effect on February 21st, the Minister for Agriculture, Mr Yates, said the rendering plants will need a £1 million overhaul. One third of this will be covered by Forbairt and EU grants.
The rendering plants face an EU ban on products which have not been processed in a batch rendering system which achieves a minimum of 133 degrees Celsius at high pressure for at least 20 minutes from April 1st.
Yesterday, the export of 2,000 tonnes of meat and bonemeal from New Ross, Co Wexford was halted when the company involved voluntarily decided not to, proceed ahead of the ban.
It was also learned that some 16,000 tonnes of meat and bonemeal have been exported during the past six weeks in anticipation of the ban. The Minister estimated that the Government will have to purchase 18,000 tonnes of rendered material which is in storage or will be processed by April 1st, but he warned this was a temporary measure.
The annual production of meat and bonemeal in the Republic is estimated at 100,000 tonnes. About 10 per cent of this, 10,000 tonnes, is produced from what is known as specified risk material.
The use of specified risk materials from bovines is banned in the human food chain and the order extends this ban to animal feed.
The specified risk materials skull, brain, spleen, eyes and spinal cord from bovines aged over 12 months and similar material from sheep and goat carcases must now be rendered separately at dedicated plants, he said.
This material will in future be destroyed, probably at incinerators which some of the renderers have expressed an interest in building or at a national incinerator which is the subject of an inter departmental study.
The Minister said the ESB expressed reservations about destroying the material in generating stations.
In order to tighten the controls further, he plans designated plants for the production of feed for the pig and poultry sector. He added that anyone wishing to incorporate poultry offal into animal food" will have to seek a licence.
Mr Yates warned the compounders that, if necessary, the Department will use DNA testing to ensure that no bonemeal enters the animal food chain.