The news that we have a suspected case of BSE in Co Louth isn’t what we wanted to hear, just days after learning that Ireland had qualified and was accepted by the World Animal Health Organisation (OIE) as having negligible risk status.

As this status suggests there is negligible risk of BSE in Ireland, not absolutely no risk. That cannot be said about any country in the world.

Whether this one incident in a cattle population of nearly 8 million head brings about any changes to this status remains to be confirmed.

The reason why this news is disappointing, rather than a major issue, is because the worst case scenario for the Irish beef industry is that nothing changes. We had been operating as a controlled risk country, the same as our biggest market the UK and until recently France. If we have to stay in this status, then we continue to trade as we were.

We will have to continue removing Specified Risk Material (SRM) and having it destroyed in approved rendering plants at a cost to the industry. If we had Negligible Risk status this could be harvested and be a potential revenue

In terms of marketing Irish beef, everyone looked forward to trumpeting that we have the same status as the Australians, New Zealanders and South Americans. If we can’t do that, then we continue to operate as usual, and Ireland had been making good progress reopening markets in recent years regardless.

We can take great pride in our transperancy. Ireland actively monitors its industry and doesn’t avoid results it wouldn’t want to find. The robust system of testing fallen stock worked. The only danger from this isolated incident is that we overact and give the issue a priority and attention it doesn’t deserve.

If we hadn’t achieved negligible risk status recently, this news wouldn’t even be a footnote, never mind a headline.