Farm organisations and beef-processors have criticised the decision of the EU Beef Management Committee to allow only 2,330 tonnes of beef into intervention over the next five weeks. Irish factories had applied for 5,920 tonnes.
While the Minister for Agriculture, Mr Walsh, welcomed the tender as "very substantial" and one of the largest intervention contracts this year, this did little to appease producers and processors.
Mr Walsh said the removal of the beef from the Irish market, and a further 2,000 tonnes from the British and Northern Ireland markets, should help ease the problems facing producers in both member-states.
Mr Walsh said he expected Irish farmers to be paid between 83p and 86.5p per lb for the 7,000 animals required to fill the contract.
Mr John Smith, of the Irish Meat Association, said he was very disappointed at the lack of response by Europe to the crisis.
He said this was further compounded by the fact that the management committee had decided to exclude grade 04 animals from intervention from next year. This, he said, would exclude 20 per cent of normal Irish intake from the system.
Mr Walsh also expressed disappointment at this exclusion and said he would be taking the matter up with his farm minister colleagues at a meeting in Brussels next week.
The EU has been attempting to phase out beef intervention as a market-support measure in the run-up to the reform of the Common Agricultural Policy.