An outbreak of bluetongue disease in Irish cattle would effectively close down the livestock industry here, and would have a greater impact than an outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease, Minister for Agriculture Mary Coughlan said yesterday.
She said we faced a serious situation in our efforts to keep out what is a very difficult disease to control because it spreads through midges and the control zones are so large.
"If it spreads to Ireland there would be a ban on the movement of all animals to slaughter or other farms, and they would have to be kept indoors at dawn and dusk because those were the hours the disease is transmitted.
"The fact is that the country would be closed on the basis of the surveillance zones that are expected with bluetongue.
"It would actually de facto close any movement of animals within this country which would have a greater impact than foot and mouth would, so these are very serious animal disease issues."
It would also mean there could be no exports of live cattle.
She said two bluetongue cases had now been confirmed in England, and many of her counterparts in Europe were very concerned about the disease because of the effect on exports and animal movements.
She claimed Ireland had been lucky in one sense that a ban on the movement of animals was in place from Britain because of the foot-and-mouth outbreaks there.
Ms Coughlan said a prolonged spell of cold, inclement weather was needed to stop the growth of midges which carried the disease because slaughtering animals would not work. Scientists were looking for a vaccine to stop its spread.
"I don't want to have any scaremongering; I think the most important thing is that farmers brief themselves and veterinarians brief themselves on the signs to look out for," said Ms Coughlan.
She said there had been several more cases of foot and mouth within the surveillance zone in England, and it was very important that the all-Ireland approach remained in place. To this end she held discussions with Northern Ireland Agriculture Minister Michelle Gildernew.