Beef trade with China only reopened in January after a three-year suspension.
The Agriculture Minister says he's liaising with Chinese authorities to ensure our beef exports restart as soon possible.
Shipments were suspended yesterday after a case of BSE was detected in a dead 10.5 year old cow.
The discovery was made following testing by the Department of Agriculture's Central Veterinary Research Laboratory on Friday.
Atypical BSE
In this case, the form of BSE - also known as 'mad cow disease' - is atypical, which occurs sporadically and more often in older animals.
The major 'mad cow disease' outbreak in the late 1990s and early 2000s was a result of a typical BSE case after cattle were fed animal matter.
"A setback we could do without"
It's comes as blow to Ireland as the Chinese market only opened back up to Irish farmers in January of this year following a three year lock out after the last BSE case was detected.
The Irish Farmers' Association is appealing to the Government to reassure China that Irish beef is safe.
Its Livestock Chair, Brendan Golden, says it's hugely disappointing;
“Given that we had only recently regained access, it’s a setback that we could do without... Once the report is reviewed by the Chinese authorities, there should be no delay in regaining access."
No danger to humans
The Department of Agriculture says there's no danger at this stage of the disease entering the human food chain.
Agriculture Minister Charlie McConalogue has been trying to allay fears, saying the case was detected because of Ireland's extremely strict testing regime;
"Every animal over 48 months, that's a foreign animal, is tested. We're one of the few countries in the world that actually does that...
"The World Organisation for Animal, which is the organisation that assesses risk in different countries, and we have the lowest risk rating available and possible."
Ireland currently exports beef to 70 countries and Minister McConalogue says the other 69 markets are unaffected.
Minister McConalogue added that Chinese protocol is also very rigid;
"The export protocol we have with the Chinese government indicates that even when there's an atypical case we have to temporarily suspend exports there until authorisation is given to recommence it.
"It's disappointing from the point of view of the Chinese market as we've put massive work into actually getting it back up and running since we got access again at the start of this past year."
He added that Chinese trade has amounted to €16.5 million so far this year. Overall beef exports amount to €2.5 billion.
