There is growing concern that the price of cattle could collapse later this harvest as prices continued to slide at factories and marts. There is no sign of international markets reopening.
Discussions between the meat plants, farmers and the Department of Agriculture, Food and Rural Development are planned before the end of the month. These will take place against a background of a slide in the price paid to farmers for their beef animals of around 90p per lb to around 80p.
The fall began when the EU Special Purchase for Destruction Scheme ended in July, removing a support price for cattle. Its replacement, the Special Purchase Scheme, which is confined to female animals, is paying only 60-64p per lb.
Industry sources believe that unless international markets such as Egypt are quickly reopened there could be a glut of upwards of 400,000 animals on the market this autumn.
This week a technical delegation from Egypt was in Ireland looking at the controls in place to prevent BSE-infected meat entering the food chain.
The Egyptians, who took 150,000 tonnes of Irish beef worth £200 million last year, banned the import of beef from Europe following the European BSE scare last November.
They visited meat plants, farms, Abbotstown laboratories and other facilities during a week which also saw the Department of Agriculture announce poor weekly BSE figures, 16 since the beginning of the month.
Department of Agriculture sources said at the weekend that the delegation appeared to be satisfied with what they had found here and the Department was hoping for a quick response from Egypt on whether it would resume trading.
Demand for Irish beef from Egypt kept the Irish cattle market strong until the ban was imposed last November, but when the market was closed the Australians moved in to fill the void.
The Russian market, which had been recovering late last year, is still recovering well but is far short of the trade generated before the virtual collapse of the economy there some years ago.
Increased demand from Britain because of the slaughter of beef animals in foot-and-mouth infected areas, is not sufficient to reduce the oversupply of cattle expected later in the year.
While there has been some recovery in mainland continental beef markets, there is a surplus of cattle supplies in Germany and France to service those markets.
Demand for Irish beef in Italy is recovering, but the quantities are small.
Irish factories already have huge stocks of beef on hand which they bought late last year and are planning to seek compensation for the losses they have suffered because of this.