ireland. speaking on rté radio on the morning after the initial announcement, deputy chief executive of the fsai, alan reilly said it was "necessary as a precautionary measure" to remove all pork products from within the country. he said he "expected" pork products to be available again before the busy christmas period got underway and is scheduled to meet government officials and retailers within hours. irish hotels and guesthouses were immediately notified of the unfolding situation and asked to dispose of all their pork products by the irish hotels federation. some tesco outlets initially only gave refunds for their own branded pork produce but have since begun issuing refunds to all affected irish products. superquinn however gave full refunds. a helpline set up by the food safety authority of ireland had received 3,000 calls within 72 hours of the outbreak. the animal feed industry worked with academics, led by chris elliott at queen's university belfast to assess the future risk of a recurrence, other possible contaminants in animal feed and to develop testing and monitoring systems to significantly reduce the possibility of another incident. this led to a systematic sampling and testing programme at animal feed mills that by 2022 was assessing over 6 million tonnes of animal feed annually. international reactions the uk's food standards agency has said it does not believe its country's consumers face "significant risk" but it was still awaiting confirmation from the irish authorities that the affected products had not been exported to its neighbour. chief scientist andrew wadge stated on his fsa blog that because dioxins remain in the body for approximately 30 years, exceeding regulatory limits for a few days has an "insignificant" effect on the individual consumer. the tolerable daily intake standard sets a level that is without appreciable risk to health over a prolonged period. in asia, south korea has banned imports and advised retailers to stop selling irish produce, singapore was following suit, whilst china has "provisionally" stopped importation. japan has also said it may recall irish pork products. press within twelve hours of the pork recall announcement, the international press was carrying the story and within thirty-six hours there were over 1,700 newspaper articles on the crisis globally. tabloid the sun announced the story as "toxic irish pork is swept off shelves" whilst the daily mirror opted for "poison pork panic: irish pigs were fed on plastic bags". daily express ran the story under the banner headline "shoppers told: don't eat toxic irish pork" and the daily mail went with the headline "british shoppers 'may not be able to tell whether they have irish poison pork in their fridge'". the times had the headline "shops rush to take irish pork off shelves", warning that eu labelling laws meant pork originating in ireland could have been labelled as british. le monde had the top-five most e-mailed website headline "dioxin alert in irish pork" and the straits times website had the crisis as its second most popular story. el país reported its concern that contaminated meat might have arrived in spain via france and portugal. the new york times, under the headline "ireland investigating tainted pork" and the washington post, under the headline "ireland recalls pork products after dioxin test", covered the story in their own short ways. afp had the headline "ireland scrambles to contain pork cancer scare" and the xinhua news agency was one of the earliest news agencies to follow the story with headlines including "irish police to investigate pork contamination". cnn tagged the story as "another red flag being waved over dinner tables this week with warnings from the irish government not to eat its pork products", comparing the crisis to bovine spongiform encephalopathy, bird flu and the 2008 chinese milk scandal. an irish supermarket six days following the outbreak of the crisis, only offering danish pork for sale. return to shelves superquinn has said it would have irish pork, traceable to one farm in county kilkenny on shelves by 11 december, becoming the first irish supermarket chain to do so. however, as early as 7pm on 10 december irish retailer dunnes had approved galtee ham back on shelves for sale. other affected foods beef twenty one cattle farms in the republic were discovered to have used the contaminated pig feed, whilst eight cattle farms used it in northern ireland. it was disclosed on 18 december 2008 that beef samples from the affected farms had dioxin levels between 100 and 400 times above the legal limit. the irish authorities went to great lengths to insist that the threat to public health from irish beef products, despite the extremely high dioxin levels, was insignificant. it was noted that the official announcement made no reference to the dioxin levels being 100 to 400 times the legal limit. in a statement the fsai recommended "that cattle which are locked down from these 21 farms should now be slaughtered and not allowed enter the food chain". there was to be no public recall of irish beef. the european commission was being kept informed. however, 3,000 animals from these herds have been slaughtered and have already entered the food chain since september. the uk's food standards agency was conducting tests to assess the level of dioxins present in northern irish cattle herds. milk one farm in northern ireland has been identified as having fed contaminated animal feed to dairy cattle. northern ireland's minister of health, social services and public safety, michael mcgimpsey has announced restrictions on milk supplies in the province. european food safety authority's statement in its statement issued on 10 december 2008, the european food safety authority (efsa) considered that the levels of dioxin & dioxin like pcbs in irish pork, before the contaminated pork was withdrawn, posed no risk to health. the efsa calculated a number of different exposure scenarios, and they found that if a consumer ate irish pork each day over the 90-day period, 10% of which was contaminated, the "increase in the body burden of no concern for this single event". in the "very extreme case" of eating large amounts of 100% contaminated irish pork every day over the 90-day period in question, the efsa considered that "this unlikely scenario would reduce protection, but not necessarily lead to adverse health effects". however the efsa warns that its calculations are "based on the very limited new data related to the current contamination incident of pork, which were made available to efsa" and concludes its statement with the "efsa based this statement on a limited data set". it also makes clear that its calculations assumed that exposure at these high levels only began in september 2008. if it would be found that the animal feed had been contaminated prior to september 2008 then it would have to re-evaluate its findings. the statement did not address the issue of contaminated beef. criminal investigation a criminal investigation commenced in december 2008 and on 6 march 2010 it was reported in the irish times that a criminal prosecution would be taken in relation to the incident. civil case millstream recycling ltd. has taken a civil case against gerard tierney of blackrock, and against his company newtown lodge ltd. millstream claims its pig feed products were contaminated by "defective" oil supplied by mr. tierney and his company. past contamination incidents