THE Department of Agriculture has denied that the State faces a health hazard following the refusal of knackeries to collect casualty animals from farms because of increased costs.
New BSE regulations brought in by the Minister for Agriculture, Mr Yates, have caused difficulty for the knackeries because only one plant in the State is licensed to process carcasses.
This plant, Monery By Products, based in Cavan, has the sole right to process what is known as Specified Risk Material from carcasses in any part of the State.
These SRMs, the organs in which BSE infection is normally found - the brain, skull, spinal cord and eyes - are rendered into meat and bonemeal for storage pending destruction.
Companies collecting dead and casualty animals claim that farmers are refusing to pay the increased costs which have been imposed on the industry since February 21st and that since then no dead animal collections have taken place.
Yesterday a Department of Agriculture spokesman said this was not so and that normality was returning to the collection service. He accepted that some farmers were not availing of the service.
"This does not mean that animals are being dumped all over the country. There is no evidence of that, and this area is one which is monitored by the local authorities?" he said.
A spokesman for the Animal Collection Association claimed there was widespread evidence of the dumping of dead animals all over the State and that there had been no collection in the west since the third week in February.
Last night the Progressive Democrats' Agriculture spokesman, Senator John Dardis, called on the Minister to intervene. He said it had been estimated that up to 5,300 farm animals die each week and the current situation had the potential for catastrophe.