Irish pork industry welcomes 158m pound rescue fund

A 180 million euro (£158 million) fund to revive the Irish pork industry after it was crippled by a food safety scare has been welcomed by farmers and pig meat processors.

Lengthy talks with Government officials ended early on Thursday with a deal hammered out to pave the way for slaughterhouses and meat factories to reopen and to allow butchers to put pork back on the shelves.

The money will compensate processors forced to recall and destroy tonnes of pork which were feared to be contaminated by a cancer-causing substance.

Agriculture Minister Brendan Smith, who will travel to Paris and then to Spain to try to revive the valuable export markets, insisted: "I know well the anxiety felt by pig farmers throughout the country over the past week and I hope that this morning’s news will ease their anxieties and concerns."