The resumption of a shipping service for live cattle from Ireland to the Continent was welcomed yesterday by the Irish Creamery Milk Suppliers' Association.
The service is due to resume today when a Dundalk shipping company transports nine lorry loads of cattle from Cork to Cherbourg, in France, on the mv Purbeck.
Mr Frank Allen, president of the ICMSA, said the resumption followed the association's lobbying of EU Agriculture Commissioner, Mr Franz Fischler, last month.
Mr Allen said it was essential that the shipping service for live cattle operated over the long-term and that an "ocean super-highway" be created between Ireland and the rest of the EU to facilitate the trade of all Irish produce on a permanent basis.