Smuggling blamed for Irish foot-and-mouth

Smuggling in South Armagh has been blamed in the British House of Lords for the outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease in Ireland.

Crossbencher Viscount Brookeborough protested over smuggling in South Armagh which he said was "endemic".

"It is the cause of Ireland’s problems with foot-and-mouth today in its totality.

"What has happened is that lambs were bought in Longtown market (in Cumbria). They were transported to Northern Ireland to be slaughtered.

"According to the driver, he arrived too late to go to the abattoir.

"He then took them to South Armagh so the lambs could be parked in a field, as far as he was concerned for the night.

"At that point or some time shortly after it, the tags were removed from those animals and they were then passed on through the Republic of Ireland.

"It appears that the farmer, or somebody close to the field where they were parked for the night, decided to keep about 35 of them and it was one of these animals which subsequently showed up with foot-and-mouth.

"The remainder are at the moment untraceable because the tags were taken out of their ears.

"However, in all probability, they went on as some of them definitely did, into an abattoir in Roscommon where they were slaughtered, but because there were no tags there is no record.

"Therefore there has been a large hunt on for the lambs because there is no record of them being killed.

"This sort of activity has been going on for years in terrorist controlled South Armagh.

"And this is the cause of foot-and-mouth outbreak in Ireland."