Four consignments of cattle from the UK which arrived in the Republic of Ireland in recent days have been checked and found to be free of foot-and-mouth disease, the Department of Agriculture said yesterday. Seán Mac Connell, Agriculture Correspondent, reports.
The announcement came as scientists in Britain said initial test results showed that Wednesday's foot-and-mouth outbreak in Surrey was probably caused by the same strain of the disease that infected two herds there last month.
However, it was still not certain that this was the 1967 strain of the disease which caused the last two outbreaks a month ago, and was found to have escaped from the government laboratory facility at Pirbright.
A faulty pipe at Pirbright laboratory 16km away was blamed for last month's infection and farmers believe the same lab was probably responsible for the fresh outbreak.
The culling of hundreds of cattle and pigs continued in Egham in Surrey yesterday, with the priority now to ensure that the disease is contained.
Yesterday, Minister for Agriculture and Food, Mary Coughlan, again met the national disease control management committee and was in touch with her Northern Ireland counterpart, Michelle Gildernew.
They discussed the bio-security arrangements which have been put in place to ensure the disease does not spread from Britain to the island of Ireland, which has banned the import of meat and meat products from Britain.
A spokesman for the department said that the arrangements were under constant review and the Government was receiving full co-operation from the British authorities.
"We have been told that the strain of the latest outbreak is similar to the one of a month ago, but they have still not established if it is the 1967 strain of the disease as yet," he said.
He added that scientists also believed that suspect animals being examined in Norfolk were unlikely to be infected with the disease, but it would be later today before tests from the centre involved would become available.
Fine Gael agriculture spokesman Denis Naughten said there must be a full reassessment of the risk from FMD and it was "high time Ireland sought to eliminate all risky practices including the importation of Brazilian beef while FMD continues to be endemic there".
The Irish Cattle and Sheep Farmers' Association, which held an emergency meeting in Portlaoise on Wednesday night, said there was a need to carefully consider full restrictions on the movement of livestock across the Border here in the event of a worsening situation in Britain.
Those at the meeting were especially critical of the undue haste shown by the EU in letting British livestock and livestock product exports resume so quickly. "It is now clear that allowing exports from Britain was too rushed. The fact that livestock were imported to Ireland from Britain this month was potentially catastrophic," said its president, Malcolm Thompson.