THE arrival of a team of veterinary experts from Egypt later this week has raised hopes in the livestock industry of an early lifting of the ban on Irish cattle imports. The Egyptian trade is worth £80 million.
Confirmation of the visit came at the weekend after a series of telephone calls to the Tanaiste, Mr Spring, by the Egyptian Foreign Minister, Mr Amr Moussa. Mr Moussa said the ban was discussed by the Egyptian cabinet.
This was the fourth telephone conversation between Mr Spring and Mr Moussa in as many days. The imminent arrival of the delegation was welcomed last night by a spokesman for the Department of Agriculture.
The news was also welcomed by a spokesman for the Live Shippers Association and the farm organisations, which described the visit of the technical group as a breakthrough on the ban announced last week.
The Department of Agriculture had provided technical information to Mr Spring for transmission. to Cairo when contact on the ban was first made between the two foreign ministers.
The Department has pointed out repeatedly that no Egyptian vets or technical personnel have visited Ireland for more than three years.
Over those years a large number of additional safeguards have been put in place by the Department and the industry to protect the consumer from coming into contact with BSE infected meat.
The Department claims that Ireland has now the strictest controls on BSE in the world, far exceeding those demanded by the EU.
The new measures include much stricter controls on the use of meat and bonemeal, thought to be the cause of the disease; greater checks on farms where the disease. has been found; and the slaughter of all animals on a farm where the disease is located and their removal from the food chain.
The Department, live shippers and the industry in general can claim that there has never been a case of BSE in a bullock in Ireland, and Egypt takes only bullocks from Ireland in the live trade.
The final shipment of Irish cattle was unloaded in Egypt yesterday, as an Irish veterinary and food delegation prepares to leave for Moscow to oppose the extension of its three county ban on beef imports from this State.
It was confirmed yesterday that the imposition of the Egyptian ban had wrecked the successful conclusion of a deal which would have reopened the live trade with Libya.
The managing director of Sallyview Estates, one of the biggest exporters of live cattle from Ireland, Mr Didier Rebel, said the trade with Libya was on the point of being reopened when the Egyptian ban was imposed.
It was also confirmed that the Waterford based livestock shipper, Purcells, may procure cattle from Australia to fill the remainder of a contract it has with the Egyptian military authorities which has been hit by the ban.