Eu Ministers Discuss Beef Crisis Steps

Thousands of dairy farmers descended on the ministers' conference hotel, demanding action to help them deal with a collapse of their beef export market which they blame firmly on Britain.

We're being blackenend by the British brush, said Limerick farmer John Sparling.

Robert Ruttle, now back in business in Limerick after being cleaned out by mad cow disease in 1993, called on Britain to go ahead with an extra cull of cattle at risk from Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (BSE).

Britain Scuttles our beef Enterprise, proclaimed one banner carried by nearly three thousand farmers braving rain outside the meeting. Organisers expected a total of six thousand from across all Ireland by the day's end.

 

Ministers were expected to put pressure on Britain's minister Douglas Hogg to explain his government's suspension of part of a cattle cull, supposed to eradicate the disease in Britain and restore confidence in the meat.

They are refusing to lift a worldwide ban on British beef until the London government carries out in full a plan drawn up at an EU summit in Florence last June and are angry at what they see as a U-turn by Prime Minister John Major. The protest is timed to coincide with discussion of steps to restore confidence in beef and to compensate farmers.