HOPES that Ireland's £100 million dairy trade with Germany will not be damaged in the worsening row between Britain and Germany over BSE were expressed last night by the Irish Dairy Board managing director, Dr Noel Cawley.
He was speaking last night in the wake of a call by the German agriculture minister, Mr Jochen Borchert, for assurances from the European Commission that bovine spongiform encephalopathy could not be transferred through milk. Milk has become the latest focus in the BSE crisis since British authorities announced last week that BSE might be transferred from cow to calf.
Dr Cawley said he hoped the latest round of publicity in Germany about the disease and possible links with milk would not affect Irish dairy exports there.
"I don't think that it will because we have built up a very strong profile of our products, especially Kerrygold, as being distinctly Irish," he said.
But, he said, TV reports in Germany about breaches of the cordon along the Border which had been set up to keep the disease out of the Republic, had created difficulties for the board in Germany.
"We were forced to take corrective action some months ago in Germany and other parts of Europe following these reports which were not very helpful," he said.
Dr Cawley said Ireland has 9-10 per cent of the German butter market, selling 27,000 tonnes of Kerrygold annually. These sales, along with other dairy products are worth £100 million annually. He said it appeared the Germans were already operating their own unofficial ban on British produced food. "I think we have identified our product as being different and unique," he added.
Irish beef exports to Germany have been severely damaged by the BSE crisis and consumption has not recovered in line with other EU countries.
The latest figures from the Irish Food Board show that while the French, Spanish and Italian markets for beef have recovered to within 75 to 80 per cent of preBSE levels, the German market remains 45-50 per cent below where it was before March 20th.
Those working in the German market say that any public mention of BSE in any context is sufficient to turn the German consumer away from the product.
In Britain, the Ministry of Agriculture and Food said yesterday there was a "significant and sustained improvement in the handling of banned bovine materials in slaughterhouses".
It said rules banning the inclusion of banned spinal and other tissue had been complied with for the first time in May. There had been a 48 per cent failure to comply with the regulations in the nine months previously.
Ministry officials had claimed that mishandling of these banned materials in slaughterhouses and animal feed mills may have been responsible for the continuing number of BSE cases in young animals since the material was banned from the animal food chain in 1989.