Minister for Agriculture Mary Coughlan has rejected a claim by British and Irish animal rights groups that badgers are not to blame for the spread of bovine tuberculosis here and that levels here are higher than in Britain.
Badgerwatch Ireland and the UK Badger Trust have called for a boycott of Irish dairy and beef products and Ireland as a holiday destination, because of the "official persecution" of badgers here.
A joint report said that although 6,000 badger snares were set every night, levels of bovine TB were twice as high as in Britain where badgers were not being culled.
In 2006, it said, 0.4 per cent of the Republic's cattle were slaughtered with bovine TB, compared with 0.2 per cent in Britain, and that Ireland slaughtered 9 per cent more cattle with the disease, even though the herd size is only 56 per cent of that in Britain.
Ms Coughlan said in a statement last night that the removal of badgers from "backspin TB areas" had led to a significant reduction in the disease. In the study areas, the number of restricted herds had dropped to 222 cases, 60 per cent lower than in pre-study periods where there were 537 cases.
Defending the Department's eradication policy, she said claims that the main spread of the disease was from cattle to cattle were incorrect as they accounted for only 38 per cent of herd breakdowns here.
The proportion of badgers infected with TB in the vicinity of infected herds was at least 40 per cent and infection by badgers was "the single most important source of infection in cattle".
Ms Coughlan also said the claims of disease levels were not correct as they were basing them on the number of cattle slaughtered as reactors to the TB test.
"The widely accepted measure of the incidence of a disease is the number of herds in which disease is detected as a proportion of the number of herds tested. On this basis, the incidence of TB in the UK in 2006 was 7 per cent compared with 5.4 per cent in Ireland."
The incidence of TB in Ireland had fallen in recent years and the number of reactor cattle had declined substantially since 1998 from 45,000 to just under 24,200 in 2006 (a 46 per cent decrease).
The IFA's animal health committee chairman Michael Flynn said the report was seriously misleading and irresponsible. "It is extremely disappointing that an Irish organisation would allow itself to be used in a campaign which is calling for a boycott of both Irish food and Ireland as a holiday destination," he said.