Dublin businessman Mr John Teeling has called for BSE-threatened cattle to be exported to poor African countries instead of being destroyed. "Would it not be better to send the meat, with the tiny chance of causing death, to feed the millions who by eating it, will have a much lower chance of dying?" he wrote in a letter to The Irish Times yesterday.
Defending his proposal last night, Mr Teeling said ethical considerations over whether it was right knowingly to run the risk of killing people by feeding them meat that might be BSE-contaminated should be put in context. After all, thousands died from lung cancer every year: "It makes no sense to ban beef and not nicotine. The same could be said of alcohol, which can have such a devastating impact on people's health in Ireland."
The socio-economic benefits for Ireland could be enormous, he said. By obviating the need to build incinerators to burn the contaminated carcasses, pollution could be automatically reduced and savings of hundreds of millions of pounds achieved: "There would be no incremental cost and the atmosphere would not be polluted." In addition, he said, many jobs would be created - both here and in Africa - in exporting and distributing the beef.
Dr Patrick Wall, head of the Food Safety Authority, said this option had never been seriously considered.
He said the EU's test/destruct scheme for all cattle over the age of 30 months was a matter of supply and demand relating to the Common Agricultural Policy, rather than a matter of food safety. It was a pan-European move, he added, and it was regrettable Irish cattle born after 1996 which were BSE-free were included in the scheme. Mr Teeling's proposal presented cost and logistical problems that would need to be explored - such as the cost of meat-canning operations, for example. It might also present difficulties for farmers in the countries concerned and there might be additional difficulties in the shape of African sensitivities towards donor Western countries. They could, understandably, say in effect: "You sent us your contaminated meat and bone meal and gave us HIV. Now you want to give us BSE."
A spokesman for the Irish Meat Association, the body which represents beef exporting companies in the Republic, said Mr Teeling's proposal was not practicable because of the decision made in Brussels.
Chief executive Mr John Smith, an advocate of removing the mounting beef surplus brought about by the decline in European consumption, said: "there's no doubt there are an awful lot of starving people in the world who could benefit from this meat. "There's very little chance of anyone being contaminated. "But it's the people in Brussels who make the decisions and they have decided otherwise."