The Department of Agriculture said yesterday that increased surveillance was responsible for the sudden rise in BSE figures since the beginning of the month and that the rise had been predicted.
Yesterday it announced that nine new cases were detected this week, bringing the August total so far to 25 and putting this year's total to date well ahead of figures at this time last year.
So far this year there have been 92 detected cases of Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy, compared with 74 cases at the end of August 2000.
It now appears last year's record 149 cases will be exceeded.
A Department spokesman said increased surveillance on fallen and casualty animals since July and mass screening of all animals over 30 months going for slaughter were bringing forward the additional cases.
"The fallen [sick] animals on farms and the casualty animals which now must all be tested for the disease have brought forward an additional 30 cases since July. We expected this to happen and predicted it," he said.
Three of this week's cases had been detected at meat plants where 209,042 animals over 30 months old have been tested for the disease since January 2nd.
Another three cases had come from the 7,838 fallen animals tested since the programme started in July.
The other cases had been detected on farms.
On a county basis, there were three in Cavan, two each in Tipperary and Cork and one each in Wexford and Westmeath.
On a positive note, all the cows were five years of age or more, with four five-year-olds, two six-year-olds, a seven-year-old, a nine-year-old and one cow aged 15 years.
"It is now clear that the reservoir of the disease is in the cohort of animals aged five years and older which were exposed to contaminated meat-and-bone meal which has not been fed to Irish cattle since 1997," said the spokesman.
Two years ago at a conference on BSE in the Veterinary College in Dublin, a leading Swiss expert on the disease said when his government aggressively sought out BSE cases, the annual totals increased by 33 per cent.
The mandatory testing of all animals over 30 months has also uncovered new cases of the disease in France, Germany and Italy.
The EU introduced mandatory testing to protect public health and build consumer confidence in beef following the collapse of the markets last November.
The beef sector here has not recovered from the BSE scare on the Continent and has been shut out of third-country markets like Egypt, which had been taking one-third of Irish beef exports up to December last.
The foot-and-mouth crisis in Britain and outbreaks in France and the Netherlands stunted the growth of the expected recovery in the beef sector as consumers turned away from meat consumption.
This has led to lower prices being paid to farmers at meat plants.