THE Taoiseach is arranging to telephone President Mubarak of Egypt and King Hussein of Jordan in an attempt to protect Irish beef exports to the Arab world.
Speaking to journalists yesterday about the implications of the British beef crisis for the Irish industry, Mr Bruton emphasised the necessity for consumers to know the origins of their beef purchases.
Quality assurances, right through the production chain, should also be offered, he said.
He had met the Egyptian President recently at the international summit on terrorism. If any advantage were to be gained from speaking to him about Irish beef, he would do so.
Meanwhile, those involved in the industry should not just label their beef as Irish but, as far as possible, give additional assurances on an individual consignment basis about its source and the quality controls on farms and in factories.
Mr Bruton stressed that Irish beef was completely safe, since the industry did not rely on meat and bone meal feed, which were the source of the BSE problem.
Those feed products were banned since 1990 and Irish beef was now fed almost exclusively on grass, making it "entirely safe".
Asked if the Border should be sealed to guard Southern consumers from Northern beef, the Taoiseach said it was important that the Irish market be protected.
However, this island had been uniquely free down through the years from the serious diseases which afflicted other beef herds.
"We would want to enter whatever arrangements are necessary with the Northern Ireland authorities to ensure that Irish beef maintains maximum quality assurance, because it deserves to," Mr Bruton said.
Meanwhile the former Fianna Fail Minister for Agriculture, Senator Michael O'Kennedy, said that, because of actions he took in 1989 and 1990, there was now no risk whatsoever to consumers of Irish beef.
When the first isolated incident happened in 1989, he immediately made an order banning all importation of meat and bone meal feed into Ireland from the UK and subsequently barred the use of those products, from any source, as a ruminant feed stuff.
There were just 124 cases of BSE in Ireland's cattle population of seven million, and 160,000 cases in Britain's 12 million cattle, Mr O'Kennedy said. The Minister for Agriculture, Mr Yates, should use these facts in "an aggressive and confident promotion of Irish beef domestically and internationally."
Dick Hogan reports from Charleville, Co Cork
The EU ban on exports of British beef could provide Irish exporters with new opportunities, Mr Yates said last evening.
During a visit to the Galtee Meats plant at Charleville, Mr Yates said suggestions by consumer organisations that An Bord Bia should be hived off from his Department because it was not consumer orientated amounted to no more than ill informed.
The Irish model for An Bord Bia and its association with the Department of Agriculture had been well tried elsewhere, and there was no reason to change a successful formula.
The BSE issue was a matter of animal health, for animal health professionals, and not one for consumer organisations.
Such suggestions, he added, should not take from the central issue, which was that once British beef products had been "ring fenced" by the EU, Irish beef produce would retain its global market and customers would understand that the Department of Agriculture operated the most stringent controls anywhere in Europe.
Last night's initiative by Brussels, Mr Yates went on, would help to solve the impasse regarding the export of Irish cattle to such states as Egypt.
The BSE crisis, he added, was posing difficulties for Irish producers. But ultimately real opportunities would develop, because Irish controls would be accepted as the most rigid of any EU member state.