Cases of swamp fever among horses have risen to 21 and now pose a serious threat to the multi-billion euro horse industry here, Minister for Agriculture Mary Coughlan said yesterday.
She told a press conference in Sligo that the latest case could not be traced to previous outbreaks, and they did not know the source of the infection, which was thought to have been a serum to which all other cases were linked.
"There is one case to which we have not found a connection as yet. It is not part of what we perceive to be the way in which the contamination took place. This case was in the general environs of the outbreaks known so far," she said.
"A lot of these horses were from different parts of the country, but the generality remains Kildare, Meath, Dublin and one in Northern Ireland."
She said that the investigation into the source of the suspect serum was ongoing, but hard evidence was needed, and that was proving difficult to obtain.
"This is very serious. It has very serious consequences for the sporthorse and leisure-horse industry, which as you know is economically very important; from a racing point of view [ it is] very important and from a showjumping point of view; and from a pleasure and leisure point of view [ it is] very important," she said.
The Minister said that she would be making a number of announcements early next week regarding research and welfare. She said there were no moves at present to ban exports or movements of Irish horses and they were working closely with organisations in other countries, especially France and the UK.
She said that one of the animals which had died was a showjumping stallion and another a sport-horse. The rest of the animals were thoroughbreds.
"We don't want to be locked out of the international racing scene and that is why we are taking this so seriously. This is a big industry and we are coming into racing time."
She said it was disappointing that new cases were being found in spite of all the controls.
The next three weeks, she added, would be crucial in the fight to eradicate the disease, which had never been found in the Republic before.
"We test, we find out, we know and we deal with it. That is our attitude and that is how we are dealing with it," said the Minister, who noted that some other countries did not have the same attitude. She said that people in the industry here knew that going beyond the restrictions she had imposed on movement would be catastrophic.