As Department of Agriculture officials prepared the slaughter of more unidentified cattle in Tipperary, the Minister for Agriculture accused smugglers of holding the country to ransom.
The Republic, he said, was now faced with a situation of the greatest danger and he appealed to those with information on imported animals to make it available to the authorities, if necessary in confidence.
"If we are to protect this country against the devastation which the spread of FMD within our jurisdiction would cause, we must have access to all information about animals imported from Northern Ireland or Britain," he said.
"I believe there are some people in our rural communities - the very communities which are at greatest risk from FMD - who are still withholding information about imported animals."
"We urgently need such information in order to follow up each and every lead which may be of concern. For so long as these people withhold such information they are effectively holding this country to ransom and are behaving in an anti-national manner.
"The time for playing games with the authorities is well past, and there is far too much at stake for everyone in this country to put self-interest, misplaced loyalties or even intimidation ahead of the common good," he went on.
"I am now calling specifically on those with information which could help our battle against FMD to let us have such information in the course of this week. I am calling on those who might stand in the way of the provision of such information to stand aside and let the national good prevail," he said.
"I will not be satisfied until we have every available scrap of information and have relentlessly followed up each and every lead which might give rise to any concern whatsoever."
The latest "unidentified" animals turned up two nights ago on a roadside in Roscrea. The 12 untagged bull calves, aged four to five months, had been abandoned, as were two other groups of animals in the past fortnight in the county, making a total of 60 animals.
These latest animals, which are most likely to have been smuggled in from Northern Ireland where calf prices are on average 10 times lower than in the Republic, have been blood-tested and will be slaughtered later today.
Another 13 animals found on a farm near Thurles last week without official State tags and three young animals from another farm will be put down.
The Minister also announced that people who have been on farms or various other locations in the United Kingdom hit by foot-and-mouth disease will be banned from entering farms in the Republic.
He also called on vets whose practices straddle the Border to limit their activities to one jurisdiction for the time being.