Suspected cases of foot-and-mouth disease in a number of pigs delivered to a Co Carlow pig processing plant were being investigated last night.
Samples were sent to the Purbright laboratories near London. The Department of Agriculture and Food will receive results from the tests later today.
A spokesman for the Department said the samples had been sent as "a precautionary measure" from the Ballon, Co Carlow plant when possible symptoms of the disease were spotted in animals presented for slaughter. The alarm was raised early yesterday morning when a veterinary inspector on duty in the plant examined pigs presented for slaughter. The pigs displayed symptoms similar to foot- and-mouth disease but, according to the Department, they were not "classic". As a precaution, samples were taken from the animals and sent to Purbright.
Emergency procedures drawn up to prevent the spread of the disease when it broke out here in March 2001 were invoked and the farm from which the pigs originated was sealed off as a precautionary measure.
It is understood there was no question of the pigs having been imported from outside the country and investigations were ongoing last night to determine what kind of feed they had received.
Full restrictions on the movement of animals and people in the area will be put in place later today if the samples prove positive.
An outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease in Britain in 2001 was spread to Ireland in smuggled sheep and there were six outbreaks of the disease here, one in the Republic, on the Border with Co Armagh. All farm animals on the Cooley Peninsula were slaughtered and their bodies destroyed.
The swift action managed to prevent the spread of the disease to the rest of the State.