DEPARTMENT'S RESPONSE:A PLAN to slaughter 100,000 pigs and destroy the carcasses from the 10 restricted farms where contaminated feed was used is being drafted by the Department of Agriculture.
The department's chief veterinary officer, Paddy Rogan, said the animals on these sites would have to be removed from the system.
He said the intention was to have the pigs slaughtered and their carcases destroyed in grade one rendering plants. These plants are used to dispose of so-called specified risk material from animals.
He said a plan was being devised to address the situation and to establish how this could be achieved as quickly as possible because a possibility existed of a welfare problem on the farms involved.
"These animals have to be considered contaminated and they are not going anywhere," he told a press conference yesterday.
The pigs, which will be slaughtered and destroyed, belong to the Irish pig herd from which 2.6 million animals are slaughtered annually. An additional 500,000 pigs from the Republic, mainly from farms in Cavan, Monaghan and Donegal, are exported live to Northern Ireland.
There are six major meat processing plants in the Republic and there are many other small operators, possibly up to one hundred, which slaughter a limited number of animals for local consumption. Moreover, they bone or process pigs for themselves or other larger operators.
Bord Bia, the Irish food board, says there are more than 400 pig producers in the State and approximately 2,000 people are employed in pigmeat processing.
In addition, there are about 6,000 employed in associated sectors such as feed manufacturing, haulage and services.
The latest figures from the Central Statistics Office noted that the output from pig farms in the State was 239,000 tonnes in 2007, valued at €293 million at producer level. It estimated the retails sales of pork, bacon and sausages in Ireland was valued at €425 million at consumer prices.
Bord Bia said Irish pigmeat exports, including value added products, amounted to €368 million in 2007 at factory/ manufacturers' prices.