Up to six meat processing plants looking to export meat and around 10 smaller abattoirs cannot be licensed because of a shortage of veterinary inspectors in the Department of Agriculture and Food.

Up to 20 other plants which are upgrading and expanding at present have no possibility of having a staff vet appointed as things stand. This means that while they have contracts to supply multiples like Tesco in the Republic, they cannot supply them in Northern Ireland or Britain.

The Department of Agriculture and Food has recently handed responsibility for some 160 small abattoirs to the local authority veterinary service.

This "impossible situation" has arisen because of a cap by the Government on the recruitment of vets by the Department, according to deputy chief veterinary inspector Mr Pat Rogan.

"It's a very real dilemma for us and an ever greater dilemma for the owners of processing premises. It's a most unsatisfactory situation," he says.

"We have not been in a position for at least two years to recruit additional veterinary staff. At the same time, a lot of plants have been engaged in upgrading and expansion, and wish to trade within and off the island. In a limited number of cases we have been able to `subdivide' some of our existing vets. About a year ago, we reached a situation that was impossible.

"There are a lot of able and highly-motivated vets out there," he says, adding that his Department had made a submission to the Department of Finance for about six additional staff, to replace people who have retired.

Mr Andrew Rudd, of Rudds Bacon Products in Co Tipperary, is one of the people awaiting an export licence for the company's new 18,000 sq ft pork processing plant, due to open in Birr, Co Offaly, in August.

"The Department are very happy that what we've got is going to meet all the requirements they set out. The final note I was left with was `we have no problem with the design but unfortunately nobody to man the factory'," he says.

For the Rudds, the Birr factory is a "quantum leap". "We're in 1,500 sq ft at the moment, so it's a 16-fold increase. We'll employ about 100 people." At least two other plants of the same size are in a similar dilemma.

One is in the Dublin area, employing 100 people and wants to trade abroad. The other is even larger, in the Waterford area, and employing more than 100 people.

"With the increasing emphasis and concern in the whole area of food safety, you have to have the people on the ground and if we can't, we can't take these premises on board," Mr Rogan says.

A proposal that Ireland should adopt an Australian system, whereby the meat industry employs meat inspectors who are not necessarily vets, has been suggested as a solution by some people in the industry.

This system, however, only operates where an inter-disciplinary meat industry safety quality assurance scheme is in place.

In the Irish situation, the fact that so much of our export trade is to non-EU countries would make adoption of such a system problematic.

Out of a total of 340 in the Department's veterinary inspectorate, some 85 are involved in food inspection. While plants only engaged in processing require a finite amount of veterinary inspection, plants which both slaughter and process require ante- and post-slaughter inspection.