For the first time in more than 15 years, Irish beef will be sold on the US market.
Following the positive news, the minister for agriculture, Simon Coveney, said "This is the culmination of two years of intensive work to prove our credentials as a supplier of highest quality premium beef."
The ban was an Europe-wide one, effected following the Bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) crisis in the late 1990s; Ireland is the first EU nation to return to the US market.
Covney went on to say the reacquisition of access to the American market is "a huge prize" because of its size, and the fact that in this period, US buyers are paying more for grass-fed beef than anywhere else in the world.
BSE, or mad cow disease, is a fatal neurodegenerative disease (encephalopathy) in cattle that causes a spongy degeneration in the brain and spinal cord; it is transmitted to human beings by eating food contaminated with the brain, spinal or digestive tract of infected carcasses.
