Russian ban gets mixed response from butchers

MR MICHAEL Doyle, of Mick Doyle's of Dublin, meat suppliers to hotels, restaurants and catering, "wouldn't like to be a butcher in one of those counties".

He's referring to Monaghan, Cork and Tipperary, the counties whose beef is not to be sold to the Russians because of the BSE scare.

Tuesday's announcement by the Minister for Agriculture, Mr Yates, will have no effect. His customers know his beef comes from counties Wicklow and Kildare, he says.

Mr Con Lucey, of Lucey's butchers, Main St, Mallow, Co Cork, says that Cork customers Bill continue to buy Cork beef from Cork butchers.

"Local people trust their local butcher. We had no problem selling beef this morning. It might be different with a supermarket. If a customer casks in a supermarket if the beef is from Cork, or Argentina, or Timbuktu, the supermarket men might not know."

However, Mr Vincent O'Doherty, director of Superquinn's, says he would be very surprised" if there were many questions from customers wanting to know the county of origin of a piece of beef.

The chain has "several hundred approved suppliers," can source any piece of beef to the farm it came from, and knows that Superquinn beef has not been in contact with any herd known to have come into contact with BSE.

However, the system does not identify to customers the county of origin of each piece of beef.

Despite the general feeling of optimism that their business would not be affected, butchers and supermarkets contacted by The Irish Times yesterday all said that the latest twist in the BSE tale will do some harm.

"I suppose you'd have to say it is bad for Tipperary beef," said butcher, Mr John Butler, of Friar St, Thurks.

He's a Fianna Fail man but sympathetic to Minister Yates. He was stuck. What could he do? We can only wait until the weekend to see what effect it will have on my business."

Mr Michael Ward, of Ward's Meat Market, Carrickmacross, says the minister shouldn't have done the deal with Russia. "He should not be doing deals if they are going to be discriminating between one Irishman and another."

His beef business was hit by the original BSE crisis and had been slowly recovering. "This will set it back a few weeks."

Mr Michael Buckley, butcher, of Bank Place, Tipperary, says Tipperary beef is the best in the world.

"It's depressing that they are running a good product down. There's no call for it."