Slaughter of contaminated pigs to get underway today

The slaughter of 100,000 pigs caught up in the recent pork contamination scare is reportedly due to get underway today.

Reports this morning say plans are also being finalised for the slaughter of the 4,000 cattle which were given the dioxin-contaminated feed that triggered the scare.

The contamination sparked a nationwide recall of all pork and bacon products after it emerged that pigs on several farms had been given feed containing massive levels of potentially poisonous dioxins.

The European Commission is making €20m available to co-finance the disposal scheme.