Minister for Agriculture Mary Coughlan attended a council of ministers meeting in Brussels today amid growing concern about the spread of avian flu in the EU.
High on the agenda were growing demands for an immediate programme of "preventive vaccination" against bird flu. The move was requested by France last week - before the country became the seventh EU country to be affected by the current spread of the bird flu virus.
The controversial proposal - which risks costing farmers their export markets - is already on the agenda at a separate meeting tomorrow of national bird flu experts from the 25 EU member states.
EU Commissioner for Health and Consumer Protection Markos Kyprianou insisted that all possible monitoring and control measures were being taken to limit the spread of the virus. However, he said vaccinations - which provide some immunity to a general flu virus, not specifically H5N1 - were not fully effective and still require extensive surveillance.
"The question is to make sure that the benefits (of vaccinations) outweigh the costs."
Last week Ms Coughlan announced the establishment of an expert group on avian flu to provide advice on controls.
Sinn Fein MEP Bairbre de Brun said it was time for an "all-Ireland taskforce" to combat the growing threat of bird flu in the EU. "Given the frequency and geographical spread of the outbreak, it would be over optimistic to believe that Ireland could not be affected at some stage by the disease."
The European Union's farming chief today rejected requests from several EU countries to help support poultry prices that have slumped due to outbreaks of bird flu, saying the situation had not yet become sufficiently severe.
Consumer confidence in poultry meat has fallen sharply in several EU countries after the lethal H5N1 strain of the disease was detected in wild birds on their territories.
Italy, for example, has seen chicken sales fall 70 per cent in about a week. France today tried to calm consumer fears after its first case of the H5N1 virus by asking people to eat chicken.
Speaking to the farm ministers, European Agriculture Commissioner Mariann Fischer Boel said there would have to be strict restrictions on poultry movement that were distorting markets before any 'exceptional measures' could be contemplated.
So far, the EU has not reported any cases of the H5N1 strain of bird flu in domestic poultry flocks - only in wild birds. However, should the EU situation with bird flu deteriorate further, extra measures could still be examined, she said.
EU law currently provides for compensation for farmers who are forced to slaughter poultry and disinfect their property in the event of a major animal disease outbreak. But it does not cover loss of income as a result of poor consumer confidence.
Meanwhile India began checking people for fever and culling up to a half-million birds to contain the first bird flu outbreak in the world's second-most populous country.
Officials in the remote district of Nandurbar in western Maharashtra state started a door-to-door check for people with fever.
India was testing about 30 people for avian flu after 50,000 birds died in Nandurbar, and tests on some fowls showed H5N1 strain.
Authorities in Egypt shut down a Cairo zoo and seven other zoos for weeks from Sunday after 83 birds died there, some containing the deadly H5N1 strain.
Bird flu has infected 171 people worldwide and killed 93.
At least 11 countries have reported bird flu outbreaks over the past three weeks in an indication the deadly virus is spreading faster.