Foot-and-mouth restrictions could continue for several months, depending on what happens in the UK, the Taoiseach said yesterday.
As preliminary tests on sheep from Louth and Wexford proved negative, Mr Ahern, visiting the disease control centre in Dundalk, said there could be no relaxation of controls and that the policy of containment must continue, despite the results.
The Government has asked farmers in the Cooley peninsula in Co Louth to take part in a voluntary cull of all sheep in the area. This could mean the slaughter of up to 20,000 animals.
The Minister for Agriculture, Mr Walsh, warned that although the initial samples from Louth and Wexford were negative, there was still a high risk from foot-and-mouth.
"They are susceptible animals and as long as there are sheep on the Cooley mountains, with the extent of fragmented holdings and the commonage in the mountains there, there is going to be a risk," he said.
Already, he said, 23,722 sheep, 600 cattle, 69 goats and 15 deer had been slaughtered in a zone around the Rice farm in Proleek, where the State's first case of the disease in 60 years was confirmed last Thursday week.
The slaughter-all policy being advocated is an indication that veterinary experts and Departmental and Garda investigators are no closer to establishing a link between the first outbreak on the island, in Meigh, Co Armagh, and the Proleek case. Meanwhile, Bord Failte's chief executive, Mr John Dully, estimated that the crisis had already cost the tourist industry £225 million. Losses could rise to £700 million, or more than one-sixth of external tourist revenue, if it continued until August, the end of the peak season.
That is when the situation in Britain is expected to level off. In London, British government officials said no decision on a vaccination policy to tackle foot-and-mouth would be made before Monday. As the number of confirmed cases rose to 784 last night, the Prime Minister, Mr Tony Blair, said it would be "irresponsible" not to consider all options when dealing with the outbreak, but officials believed the preemptive cull was beginning to keep pace with the numbers of animals identified for slaughter.
After talks with the Agriculture Minister, Mr Nick Brown, the president of the National Farmers' Union, Mr Ben Gill, said there were "unanswered questions" about vaccination. Many farmers are sceptical about the policy and believe that they will not be able to sell the carcasses of vaccinated animals.
The first case of Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy detected by the ENFER test on over-30-month animals, was found in a Co Cavan meat plant this week. This is the first positive sample in 62,000 tests carried out since January 2nd, when the EU made testing mandatory. The infected cow was nine years old.