FARMERS have been feeding cattle on rendered offal from the poultry industry, and such activity is legal, it emerged yesterday when the Minister for Agriculture tightened BSE animal feed controls.
But because of new regulations, an effective ban is being imposed on the practice, which is considered by veterinary and other experts to be without risk to humans.
BSE is thought to have been caused by feeding contaminated sheep brains in meat and bonemeal to cattle.
While it has not been permissible to feed meat and bonemeal from any mammal to cattle since 1990, there has been no such restriction on the use of meat and bonemeal from poultry.
At the National Tillage Conference in Carlow, Mr Yates said it was extremely difficult to tell avian from mammalian bone fragments when animal feed was being examined.
"To overcome this control difficulty I intend to make an order that will require a special licence to have poultry offal meat or poultry meat and bone meal on the premises," he said.
"In practice, I find it difficult to envisage circumstances in which such licences would be issued to mills manufacturing ruminant feed. Such controls are necessary to protect our livestock," he said.
The Minister issued a strong warning to animal feed compounders that any contamination of ruminant rations with mammalian meat and bonemeal, from whatever source, would lead to the immediate withdrawal of their manufacturing licence.
At a press conference later, the Minister said the regulations were intended to give a serious "shake out" to the rendering industry. In future there will be designated rendering plants for white and red meat.
He said talks were going on between the nine rendering plants and Forbairt on how best to dispose of the 3,000 tonnes of bonemeal made annually from specified risk material from animals and from diseased animals. Grants were supplied to the renderers to make the plants more efficient.
He also said he was submitting an amended BSE Eradication Plan to the EU for sanction by the EU Veterinary Committee and described the forthcoming visit of an EU veterinary delegation to examine the situation here as of "deepest significance".
"If they lost confidence in the Irish controls it would be the most serious situation since March 20th last," the Minister said.
. The Department will today announce the number of BSE cases for the month of January, as part of its new policy to issue information on cases at the end of each month, not as they happen.