Despite statements this weekend from the Department of Agriculture that Thursday's discovery of infected swans in Scotland had only "marginally" increased the bird flu threat to Ireland, some top restaurants have already removed chicken from their menus and others signalled they would follow suit.

Derry Clarke of Dublin's Michelin-starred L'Ecrivain said: "I wouldn't put chicken on the menu now because it simply wouldn't sell. People believe it's not safe at the moment. It's like BSE all over again, when no one went near beef."

Ross Lewis of Dublin's award-winning Chapter One said there had been a "definite decline" in chicken orders since the Scottish outbreak.

"Out of a total of 130 orders yesterday, three or four of those were for chicken. I imagine it's only going to get worse and I will be taking it off the menu this week, " he said.

"If someone ended up getting bird flu from a chicken out of your restaurant, you might as well close the doors there and then."

Ryan Bell of Shanahan's On The Green in Dublin said he took chicken off his menu a month ago, "because I knew the sales would drop. People get scare-mongered and stop eating it. It's a waste of time having it on the menu, especially now bird flu has come to Scotland. It's only a matter of time before it comes here."

Kevin Thornton of the Michelin-starred Thornton's in Dublin said he was not going to "panic" but would be carefully looking at the issue.

"When it comes to our shores . . . and I do think that it's a question of when, not if . . . I will consider taking the bird off the menu. I think it's a bit ridiculous, because if the bird is cooked properly you don't have to worry. But that doesn't matter, because psychologically, people won't eat it if they think there's a risk."

Troy Maguire of Dublin's popular L'Gueleton said he would be taking poultry off the menu if bird flu reached Ireland. "Safety comes first.

At the moment, sales of our duck and chicken are fine, but we're expecting sales to drop dramatically now. We've already cut down a bit on our bird orders, and depending how things go in the next week, we might be cutting our orders dramatically. Even though it's safe, people won't be willing to eat it."

Neven Maguire, of McNean Bistro in Co Cavan said he "wouldn't take chicken off the menu unless I was told to.

Mind you, if it doesn't sell, there's no point keeping it on."

However, Agriculture minister Mary Coughlan said yesterday that Ireland was in danger of talking itself into an unnecessary crisis.

"We need to be calm about this. There was a lot of hysteria about Sars at the time, yet we didn't get it, " she said.

Coughlan said she was confident her department had all the necessary contingency plans in place, including the immediate establishment of a 3km exclusion zone around any infected bird.