Local butchers try to save their businesses

The Associated Craft Butchers of Ireland will outline its submission paper for ensuring the guarantee of local meat for local people to the Agriculture Minister this morning.

In light of the foot and mouth crisis, the submission will mark the beginning of a six week campaign to save local butchers.

While the situation in Ireland is not yet as bad as that in the United Kingdom, butchers here feel it is still more than worrying.

In the last decade, two thirds of this country's abattoirs have been closed and over 400 butchers shops have closed their doors.

The chief executive of the ACBI, Pat Brady, says the fulcrum on which a guaranteed route of supply of meats turns is the local butcher and small abattoir.

Mr Brady also says that this is a point that has received much airing in the context of the foot and mouth crisis