Ireland is to receive almost €20 million from EU funds to tackle animal diseases such as BSE.
The package was one of the last acts of the outgoing Commissioner for Health and Consumer Affairs, Mr David Byrne, who announced the measures.
A total of €188 million was made available and overall funding increased by €41 million since 2004, reflecting the high level of importance attached to disease eradication measures for the protection of animal and public health.
Ireland will receive €6.1 million from the fund for monitoring BSE in animals.
This will involve the testing of all cattle for human consumption older than 30 months, all dead-on-farm cattle and emergency slaughtered cattle over 24 months and all suspect animals independent of their age.
The commission has been co-financing the testing for BSE and BSE eradication programmes across the EU.
A total of €800,000 has been made available to Ireland for the eradication of scrapie in the national sheep flock.
This programme requires the culling and genotyping of animals in infected flocks and the setting up of breeding programmes for scrapie resistant flocks. A total of €32 million is being spent across the EU on the programme.
Ireland has been given €5 million for the eradication of brucellosis and a further €4 million for the eradication of bovine TB next year.
The number of cattle identified as having TB in Ireland has dropped to a 20 year low with the number of so called "reactor" animals dropping to 25,000 last year from a high of 45,000 in 1998.
There was a similar drop in the number of brucellosis cases identified over the same period.