The North's Department of Agriculture has sought to play down reports that there was widespread fraud and animal movement in south Armagh during the recent extended cull.
A DUP Assemblyman and MP said he had heard widespread allegations of abuse. The Rev William McCrea told the Sunday Times he planned to ask the Agriculture Minister, Mrs Brid Rodgers, to investigate. According to the newspaper, it is now suspected that hundreds of low-value sheep, mostly ewes past breeding age, were slipped into the exclusion zone around Meigh, south Armagh, before the cull. These sheep, with a real value of as little as £30, were then slaughtered with compensation payments of £100.
A spokesman for the Department of Agriculture yesterday confirmed the officials had not gone into the zone for fear of spreading foot-and-mouth.
The spokesman said: "If the idea is that the farmers in south Armagh engaged [in smuggling] en masse, I think that would have been very difficult given the controls on movement in place on both sides of the Border."