The number of confirmed outbreaks of foot-and-mouth disease in the UK has risen to 164 from 139, the biggest single increase in a day since the outbreak began, the ministry confirmed yesterday.
Despite this, the British Minister for Agriculture, Mr Nick Brown, insisted he was "absolutely certain" the spread of foot-and-mouth was under control. In Devon animals were being slaughtered on what is believed to be Britain's first organic farm with the virus.
Reacting to the UK increase in cases, Minister of State, Mr Hugh Byrne, said: "I think it's nothing short of a scandal. I believe myself that Britain have totally mishandled this."
He told the BBC: "They seem to have been of the opinion that this disease was just going to go away - they seem to me and to many people in Ireland to have cared very little about the farmers in Britain and very little about their neighbours like ourselves."
Meanwhile, the UK Ministry of Agriculture was playing down a report which claimed the burning pyres of animals slaughtered because of foot-and mouth could spread the human form of BSE and other diseases.
The Independent on Sunday claimed yesterday that the ministry had admitted the pyres could spread the prion which causes BSE and its human equivalent, variant CJD, into the air and water supplies.
However, a ministry spokesman said an "independent risk assessment" noted the low risk of possibly spreading the BSE prion was "not sufficient to mean the government should change its policy of burning". The ministry also confirmed that carcasses of slaughtered animals were being shipped to a rendering plant at Widnes, Cheshire, rather than being burned on farms.
A Conservative Party spokesman, Mr Tim Yeo, said the army should be called on to help with the incineration process.
On the risk of spreading BSE, the Independent on Sunday quoted Ms Joyce Quin, a junior agriculture minister, saying there was a possibility a "small number" of cattle affected by foot-and-mouth "may be in the preclinical stage of BSE and may harbour some of the BSE agent".
The ministry spokesman said a risk assessment noted almost no risk of the possible spread of these diseases from the pollution associated with the pyres. He said correct cooking kills killed these diseases and the pyres reduced the meat to ash.
Experts say open-air pyres burn less efficiently than special incinerators being used to burn animals slaughtered over 30 months. There is, therefore, more chance the BSE prion, which is very hard to kill, will escape into the air or water.