The beef industry and the Department of Agriculture have agreed a compensation package for the destruction of cattle over 30 months old.
Under the scheme farmers will get 5p per lb more than had been agreed with the EU at the BSE crisis talks last month.
The additional money for the farmers was sanctioned yesterday by the Minister for Finance, Mr McCreevy, who will also have to pay for the killing, rendering and storing of a possible 750,000 animals at a cost of £250 each.
Details of the scheme, which begins on Monday, were announced by the Minister for Agriculture, Food and Rural Development, Mr Walsh. He circulated a list of plants where the cattle can be slaughtered. These are the three AIBP plants at Bandon, Clones and Waterford; Ashbourne Meats, Roscrea; Bergins, Broadford, Co Kildare; DMP, Carrigans, Co Donegal; Slaney Meats, Bunclody; Dawn Meats plants at Ballyhaunis and Rathdowney; Fair Oaks plants at Bagenalstown and Clonmel; Galtee Foods, Charleville; Honeyclover in Freshford; the Kepak plants at Athleague, Clonee and Watergrasshill; Kildare Chilling and Liffey Meats, Ballyjamesduff.
The Minister said the option to test animals over 30 months old for BSE so they could go into the food chain would be available to producers.
The Irish Farmers' Association president, Mr Tom Parlon, welcomed the increase in the price. The IFA, he said, would do all in its power to encourage the maximum testing of animals over 30 months old. However, the announcement of the 5 per cent increase to be paid for steers and heifers was described as "flawed" by Mr Pat O'Rourke, president of the Irish Creamery Milk Suppliers' Association, because the increase did not cover cows, the category of animal which should be targeted by the scheme.
He repeated the ICMSA proposal that the price should have been set at an overall figure of £300 for every cow slaughtered.
Mr John Smith of the Irish Meat Association, representing the meat plants, said the association would prefer to concentrate on the commercial market rather than the compensation scheme. He said plants still had millions of pounds' worth of stock which they could not dispose of because the animals were processed before the crisis and not segregated by age.
Chris Dooley adds: Concern about the threat of pollution from the slaughter scheme has been expressed by the Environmental Protection Agency.
The agency is to write to abattoirs involved in the scheme, warning them the huge increase in cattle being slaughtered must not result in a breakdown in pollution controls. It has also raised the issue with the Department of Agriculture, expressing concern about the industry's capacity to deal with the numbers of animals being slaughtered.