The discovery of another young BSE-infected cow born after animal-feed controls were adjudged to be safe by the EU has led to a full-scale veterinary investigation in Co Monaghan.
The six-year-old cow was found in a beef-producing herd in Monaghan last week, and is the 10th such case of bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) found in animals born since 1998.
The EU's scientific steering committee indicated in a report on Ireland's BSE risk in May 2000 that enhanced feeding controls here were stable from 1996 onwards, very stable from 1997 onwards, and optimally stable since January 1st, 1998.
Since that date, four animals born in 1998 have been found to have the disease, and six animals have been born in 1999 with BSE.
While veterinary experts have warned that some animals born since 1998 will surface, the discovery of this case is a setback against figures which show a dramatic decline in the disease.
So far this year, the total number of cases is just 15, which represents a decrease of over 67 per cent when compared with the equivalent number of cases - 46 - in the same period last year.
This compares with 64 cases for the equivalent period in 2003, and 104 for the equivalent period in 2002.
The Department of Agriculture said yesterday that epidemiological studies into the some of the other young BSE cases were still taking place.
In the investigation of two cases, an illegal knackery which was converting dead animals into meat and bonemeal was uncovered.
In another, contaminated cattle feed was found in hoppers which had been used to store meat and bone meal for pig and poultry feed.
This discovery led to farmers nationwide being advised to thoroughly clean such storage facilities as it was thought that the source of the BSE came from the storage tanks.
The latest investigation will also look at the possibility that the infected animal may have been smuggled into the State from Northern Ireland as there was widespread smuggling of calves into the Republic from the North between 1996 and 2001.