Officials from the Department of Agriculture, who carried out a second round of tests, have said that they have not found any traces of horse meat at Liffey Meats factory in Ballyjamesduff, Co Cavan.

The company was in the cenre of a controversy after horse meat DNA was detected in its beef products. FSAI survey had found horse DNAin its products in December and the company had assured that it has addressed the issue.

Simon Coveney, Agriculture Minister said, "This is very positive news as it supports the claims of the company that they have addressed any concerns that arose from the findings of the FSAI survey in December which found very low trace levels of equine DNA in three of the Liffey Meats burger samples."

Liffey Meats was linked to the horse DNA controversy and the samples of its beef burgers produced between 10 and 16 January were tested by the inspectors. Another firm, Silvercrest in Co Monaghan was also found to be providing beer meat with traces of horse meat.

Estimates showed that more than 10 million burgers were withdrawn from the shops and were destroyed across the Ireland and the UK.