Farmers in south Armagh and the Cooley peninsula in Co Louth continued to move sheep illegally inside the restricted area last week, The Irish Times has learned.
Sources on both side of the Border confirmed last night that illegal movements of sheep had taken place within both Louth and the Newry and Mourne area last week, mainly to avoid detection of false claims for ewe premium payments and to prevent the slaughter of their stock.
As the authorities North and South contemplated a total cull of animals to stop the spread of foot-and-mouth disease, the Dublin authorities had expected to have to slaughter 25,000 sheep to clear the Cooley peninsula. This figure has now turned out to be around 15,000.
However, in Northern Ireland, where negotiations to allow an extended cull of some 2,500 sheep around the Meigh area continued for most of last week, the authorities said the total had risen to 9,000 sheep.
Most of the illegal movement which took place in the Cooley area was from farm to farm or to mountain commonage, to keep flocks outside the killing zones which were extended first to a 1km zone around the Rice farm, later to a 3km zone, then to a corridor north to the Border and, on Saturday, extended to the whole peninsula.
In Co Armagh, where there were fewer controls because of the complexity of the political situation, movements also took place to reconcile ewe premium claims with the number of sheep on farms, according to our sources.
The authorities there were anxious to reconcile the number of animals they would cull and the number claimed under the EU schemes.
In the Republic it was decided that reconciliation of the ewe premium claims with the number of animals slaughtered would take place later, so priority would be given to preventing the spread of the disease by putting all available resources into the cull.
The cross-Border borrowing of ewes to balance the books when inspections were being carried out, especially in mountain areas where the officials have to give notice of inspection, has been going on for well over a decade. So-called "flying flocks" could be hired for the day from operators in the Border area.
A spokesman at the Northern Ireland Department of Agriculture yesterday said the almost fourfold increase in the size of the cull there was partly due to sheep lambing on the mountains and the extension of the area in which the cull was taking place.
The work on completing this cull was continuing until late last night. Today the Northern Ireland chief veterinary officer, Mr Bob McCracken, will ask the EU Standing Veterinary Committee to confirm the regional status for Newry and Mourne so exports can resume from the rest of the North.
Work was well advanced last night in sealing the 400 roads in the area to satisfy the EU demands. Local people said not even at the height of the Troubles had there been tighter monitoring in the area.
Meanwhile, two of the Republic's farm organisations expressed reservations about sheep tagging which the Minister for Agriculture, Mr Walsh, has said would come into operation next month. Then every sheep in the country will have to be tagged to stop smuggling and other illegality.
The Irish Farmers Association president, Mr Tom Parlon, said there were still a number of operational details to be worked out, especially in the area of identifying carcasses at meat plants.
The president of Macra na Feirme, Mr T.J. Maher, said while he welcomed the announcement, farmers who purchased double-tagged animals would have to cut out existing tags and replace them with their own. He called for the tag removal system to be dropped.