Border checks low-key

GARDAI and customs officials stepped up their vigilance along the Border yesterday, but the operation remained a decidedly low-key one as local security chiefs awaited developments in Brussels and Dublin.

Garda, Customs and Excise, Defence Forces and Department of Agriculture officials met in Sligo yesterday morning to co-ordinate existing operations, but there were no overt signs of reinforcements being called in.

The meeting did draw up what senior gardai said was a "contingency plan" to draft in extra personnel to meet the needs of a long term campaign. But Assistant Garda Commissioner Tom King, who chaired the meeting, dismissed suggestions that the Border was being closed.

"Talk about sealing the Border is premature and it's an emotive term which I wouldn't use," he said. "What we are doing simply is working within existing resources and in co-ordination with all the other agencies to prevent the illegal importation of cattle into the State from any source."

But he indicated that in the event of a Government direction on the issue, more drastic measures could yet be taken.

There were no checkpoints and no obvious Garda or Customs presence yesterday evening at two of Sligo's nearest Border crossings Belleek and Garrison while a sole garda kept watch in his patrol car in the village of Kiltyclogher, a stone's throb south of the Border in Co Leitrim.