The Irish beef industry was last night considering the implications of any removal of a British ban on beef from native animals aged over 30 months from entering the food chain, writes Sean MacConnell, Agriculture Correspondent.
The British Food Standards Agency has recommended a removal of the ban in favour of extensive testing for Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (BSE), as is the system in Ireland.
Some 50 per cent of Irish beef exports go to Britain, and this trade is estimated to be worth €600 million this year.
Mr Kieran Fitzgerald, director of the food and drinks sector of IBEC, said the move by the food agency was welcome and should normalise the market and put the issue of BSE behind it.
"However, it will also increase the supply of beef to the market there from local sources, and it would be difficult at this stage to see how this will break down," he said.
The food safety agency has recommended to the British government that the ban on meat from cattle aged over 30 months be replaced with the testing of older animals in two stages for BSE.
Cattle born after August 1996 could be allowed into the British food chain after being tested for BSE at the earliest from January 2004, it said.
And if the over-30-months rule was replaced, then any cattle testing positive for BSE would have to be destroyed.
The British ban on meat from cattle aged over 30 months was introduced in 1996 when scientists made a probable link between mad cow disease and variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease (vCJD) in humans.
Mr Don Simms, the Belfast businessman whose son, Jonathan, is undergoing world pioneering drug treatment in a desperate final attempt to halt the spread of vCJD, insisted no cash saving could justify the extra exposure.
"Money has been put before human life here," he said.
"The food standards agency was set up to protect UK citizens from falling ill.
"This is Russian roulette, and for those people who have had to endure watching their loved ones dying of vCJD it's not acceptable."
The number of clinical cases of BSE in British cattle has fallen rapidly in recent years.
From a peak of more than 37,000 in 1992, the figure dropped to less than 600 last year.
A spokesman for the National Farmers' Union (NFU) in Britain welcomed the recommendations which must first be accepted by the British government and then the Standing Veterinary Committee of the EU.
"If the government accepts the recommendation, we could expect significant volumes of additional beef to come onto the market, and probably more from overseas," said Mr Stephen Rossides, head of the farmers' union food, health and science unit.
He added that he expected the food safety agency's recommendations to be approved by government.