IRELAND may be advised to stop slaughtering thousands of healthy cattle from farms where a case of BSE has been found.
Nearly £20 million of taxpayers' money has been spent since 1990 on destroying all the cattle on farms where cases of Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy have been identified.
The total slaughter policy was devised as a giant but very expensive public relations exercise to reassure overseas and Irish consumers of the safety of Irish beef.
It was generally accepted that the exercise did little to eradicate BSE, and there is emerging evidence that the money would be better spent tracing the origin of the infection.
Yesterday a delegation of EU veterinary experts arrived in Dublin to begin a week long investigation into the controls.
Brussels sources said at the weekend that existing veterinary advice suggested that the total slaughter policy - which is unique to Ireland - should be discontinued in favour of more active research into finding the animals which were reared with infected cows.
Such a change might help Ireland win the experts' support for EU funds exceeding £7 million to help stamp out the disease here.
sources close to the team said at the weekend that it was likely Ireland's controls would be more than adequate for EU standards.
The veterinary experts have already discovered anomalies in other European countries, particularly in Germany, in relation to meat and bone meal.
The veterinary team will report later in the year. It is likely to recommend new guidelines on diagnosing BSE. It is also likely to indicate that there is under diagnosis of cases in continental Europe, especially in Germany, France and the Netherlands.
New regulations introduced last week are already creating a major environmental problem because farmers are being forced to bury or dump dead and diseased animals.
Collection of so called "fallen" animals from farms ceased last Friday because the only rendering plant licensed to process them into meat and bone meal is considered to be charging too much.
The Department had ruled that these animals should be regarded as Specified Risk Material, similar to animals infected with BSE, and that the material derived from their carcasses should be destroyed.
It is estimated that there are between 100,000 and 250,000 such casualties on Irish farms each year, excluding sheep and pigs, which die of natural causes, diseases or accidents.
Farming sources said last night that they face a charge of £300 to have a dead animal removed from their farms.
"Farmers will be forced to either bury casualty animals, thus damaging the water quality, or to dump them in quarries or disused lands they own. It will create major problems," one east coast beef farmer said last night.
A Department of Agriculture spokesman said it will give urgent attention to the problem and may license one or two more plants to render the "fallen" animals.