The Minister for Agriculture has met representatives of Tesco, Britain's biggest supermarket chain, to seek a reversal of the decision by several British chains to remove Irish beef from their shelves.

Mr Walsh said he was doing everything he could at "political, commercial and promotional level" to have sales of Irish beef by British retailers resumed.

He told Mr Willie Penrose, Labour's agriculture spokesman, that Ireland's share of British supermarket retail beef sales accounted for £200 million or 100,000 tonnes. It was a very valuable market and the chains have "literally turfed us out."

He had also ordered the Irish food marketing board, Bord Bia, to intensify its direct contact with British supermarket chains. He said Ireland had conducted an "orderly trade" with Britain and had a right to "unimpeded" access to the market.

The blockading of Irish beef at British ports two months ago had "now extended to the boardrooms of British supermarkets," he said.

The Minister stressed that the UK was not self-sufficient in beef production and it needed to get it somewhere. He was hopeful that Ireland's position could be restored and even enhanced soon.

Mr Penrose said the campaign launched in Britain to buy home-produced beef had created a major marketing problem for the Irish industry.

Irish beef accounted for 40,000 tonnes, or 20 per cent of the total supply of beef to British supermarkets.

He believed the EU beef market was being "re-nationalised", reversing earlier progress to the extent that only one third of beef was now sold within the EU. This was contrary to free competition.