Almost 700 workers in the meat industry in the North have already lost their jobs because of the beef crisis, writes Suzanne Breen in Belfast. They are mainly employees in abattoirs where cattle are no longer being sent for slaughter. A total of 320 jobs have been lost alone in Newry, Co Down.
Hundreds of others have been warned of possible redundancy. The managing director of Lurgan Chilling, a beef processing plant in Co Armagh, has blamed the British government for "creating a catastrophe". Mr Joseph Corr has put his 150 workers on a one day week. He urged the government to take immediate action to restore consumer confidence.
The General Board of the Presbyterian Church also called on the British government to take whatever action is necessary to restore public faith in the beef industry. It offered sympathy to the farming community whose livelihoods were at risk and asked the EU and the government to give "sympathetic consideration" to compensation.
Meanwhile, the DUP deputy leader, Mr Peter Robinson, has attacked the Irish Government for its response to Britain's BSE crisis. "Large scale security has been mounted on the Border by the Republic's police force, backed by the Irish Army," he said. "Their present `effective security policy' against mad cows compares drastically to their `mediocre security policy' against mad IRA bombers."