Major faces pressure on North's BSE status

A CROSS-PARTY delegation of Northern Ireland MPs and the president of the Ulster Farmers' Union will meet the British Prime Minister, Mr Major, today to appeal for special status for Northern Ireland in the BSE crisis.

At the same time, the SDLP leader, Mr John Hume, his fellow MEP, the Ulster Unionist Mr Jim Nicholson and the deputy president of the UFU, Mr Walter Elliott, will meet the EU Commissioner for Agriculture, Mr Franz Fischler in Strasbourg.

"Basically we will be saying to the Prime Minister that given - that there is a willingness in Europe to look at Northern Ireland sympathetically and separately, then the UK government should not be holding us back," said Mr Wesley Aston, director of commodities for the farming union.

"That is the bottom line and that is the reason why our president is meeting the Prime Minister and our deputy president is meeting Mr Fischler, because the problem is at home and not with Europe.

The Ulster Unionist leader, Mr David Trimble, the DUP leader, the Rev Ian Paisley, the UUP's spokesman on agriculture, Mr Willie Ross, and Mr Eddie McGrady of the SDLP will meet Mr Major with the UFU president, Mr Greer McCollum.

The meetings will take place as support grows for special regional treatment for Northern Ireland. The Taoiseach, Mr Bruton, added his voice to the growing call for special status.

This follows the positive response given by the Minister for Agriculture, Mr Yates, to the certification proposals. The proposals would lift the European ban on herds which comply with three elements. The animal must be under 30 months, it must not have come from a BSE herd and it must not have passed through a BSE herd at any stage.

The UFU said that Mr Yates's backing "certainly helps our case". The British government is split over its approach to ending the export ban on beef in the North. So far it has declined to make a request to the European Commission for special regional status. The Commission has stated that it is up to the British government to make the request and Brussels can then act on that.

The Northern Ireland Minister for Agriculture, Baroness Denton, 1has welcomed the sympathetic backing in Brussels for Northern Ireland beef farmers.

After a meeting with the Ulster Farmers' Union, she said that if the scheme was adopted it would place Northern Ireland in "pole position" to reopen its export trade. She stressed the low incidence of BSE in Northern Ireland and the advanced computer system in use for tracing affected herds.

The level of BSE in the North is about 10 per cent of the overall UK rate. Mr Aston said that under the slaughter culling regulations 127,000 cattle in Britain would have to be slaughtered but in the North it would be 2,500. "That is 600 herds and we know where they are because of the Department of Agriculture's traceability system." Mr Hume said: "We have the best system for tracing BSE animals in the world and we have a lot to teach the rest of the world." He stressed that "the agricultural industry in Northern Ireland is far bigger than it is in Britain so the damage to the North's economy is far greater".

The IFA president, Mr John Donnelly, has said that an early lifting of the beef export ban on Northern Ireland would be welcome. This would require a BSE control policy similar to that in the Republic.