The Minister for Agriculture, Joe Walsh, has announced an extension of the County Louth sheep cull to create a so-called firebreak in the Cooley peninsula against the spread of foot and mouth disease. The three-kilometre exclusion zone around the infected farm in Proleek is being extended to the Border, but, as yet, there is no indication how many animals will be killed. The slaughter of more than 13,000 sheep and 3,000 cattle in the immediate area of the infected farm continued throughout the day.
Almost 1,200 animals have been destroyed in various parts of the Republic over the past 36 hours as a further precaution and because of suspicions they may have come across the Border. However, no arrests are expected.
In another development, the Stormont Agriculture Minister, Brid Rodgers, has hit back at comments made by the Taoiseach, Bertie Ahern, during his meeting with the British Prime Minister, Tony Blair, in Stockholm. The Taoiseach suggested that foot and mouth disease controls at ports in the North were not adequate. Mrs Rodgers said that, while the frontline of defence was at the farm gate, port controls had been a priority in the North throughout the crisis. She said that the controls had been kept under constant review and that would continue to be the case.
The Minister said that there had been very close liaison between the Agriculture Departments on both sides of the Border throughout the crisis, including discussions at both official and ministerial levels about port controls. She said that no time had any concerns about those controls been raised with her.
Meanwhile, a range of measures to assist tourism operators affected by the current foot and mouth restrictions is to be put to the Cabinet by Tourism Minister Jim McDaid. At a meeting with tourist operators in Carlingford, County Louth, this afternoon he said that the Cooley region would not be forgotten by the Government. He said that his department would give special status to the county for a marketing campaign.
Nobody at the meeting asked the Minister about the issue of compensation for those outside the farming community but they did ask for a range of measures to assist them in the immediate term with cash flow problems as well as long term solutions. Earlier today, Minister Walsh said that he had very great sympathy for businesses beyond the farming community. Speaking on RTÉ, he said that he would have a look at how they were discommoded and at their loss of income. Tests carried out on a sheep in Donegal have shown no trace of foot and mouth. Minister Walsh has repeated that there are no so- called "hot" suspected cases of the disease in the Republic.
