The Associated Craft Butchers has announced it will seek a court injunction to stop the EU slaughter and destruction scheme for cattle. So far, 13,500 Irish cattle have been killed.
The Associated Craft Butchers said it had met representatives of the Department of Agriculture, Food and Rural Development to demand equitable support for the domestic meat trade, particularly for small abattoirs supplying local butchers.
The small abattoirs must buy cattle under 30 months old for the Irish market, as they have no facilities to test animals over 30 months for BSE.
They face the same waste disposal problems but with no compensation from Government.
"It is now clear that the Purchase for Destruction Scheme has nothing to do with food safety and is a pure market support measure.
"Nonetheless, it is part of the fallout from BSE which has not just affected farmers," said a spokesman for the group.
"The effect of the PFD scheme is to seriously distort the domestic market. It has allowed a selected group of large meat factories to test and supply into the Irish market cheap beef with a State subsidy which is denied to the small butcher and abattoir owner," he said.
"This is a complete breach of the competition law and EU rules on State intervention, which clearly have been overlooked in the panic of recent weeks. We will go to the courts to have the scheme stopped."
He said the Associated Craft Butchers had sought £12 million in market support from the Department because of these increased costs and to balance the support which was being given to the export plants.
Meanwhile, the Minister for Agriculture, Mr Walsh, travelled to Germany yesterday for the Green Week food fair and met the EU Commissioner for Agriculture and Rural Development, Mr Franz Fischler.
According to a spokesman for Mr Walsh, their meeting was "quite constructive".
He said Mr Walsh had briefed Mr Fischler on the implementation of the slaughter for destruction scheme and the testing of over 30-month-old animals here.
Mr Walsh also last night met the new German Minister for Consumer Affairs, Food and Agriculture, Ms Renate Kunast, who had earlier told a shocked parliament in Berlin that Germany expected up to 500 BSE cases by the end of the year.
Ms Kunast said the forecast was based on internal government estimates.
Sixteen cases of the disease have been confirmed since November 22nd. Until then, Germany claimed to have no cases.
A Co Galway farmer with a confirmed case of BSE in his herd has been left waiting for almost five weeks without any move by the Department of Agriculture to process the destruction of his remaining livestock.
The Gort dairy farmer, who has had to dump his milk since the confirmation of BSE in one of his cows, has been waiting for over a month for Department valuers to examine his herd. His animals now face destruction.
A 41,000-kilo consignment of contaminated beef from Germany has been impounded by health officials in the North.
The Food Standards Agency said the meat contained remnants of spinal cord. It was discovered at two meat processing plants in Newry, Co Down, on Wednesday.