Michael McNamara (Clare, Labour) | Oireachtas source

My other two questions were entirely separate. I refer to Directive 65/432/EC on inter-community trade in bovines and swine. The Department is concerned about it because a lot of our beef is traded. Department policy is to prevent cattle from staying in lairage or in marts overnight where possible. It is a good policy, but sometimes such things are unavoidable because of the nature of the cattle trade in Ireland. It seems to be that the directive, as consolidated, clearly envisages cattle staying for up to three or four days.

I am not proposing that that should be entertained, although it seems to be envisaged by EU law in what are called assembly areas and marts. The definitions in the directives do not seem to differentiate between the two. Will the Department look into that and give me a written response? It is basically a situation in which there are smaller marts in peripheral areas of Ireland and there are buyers who come down from Meath or wherever. They are not really interested in going to a mart in Connemara or west Clare to buy four cattle, so they go to Ennis, Loughrea or one of the bigger marts and they can buy 50 the next day. Their preference would be to pick 54 up, because they are not going to send down a lorry to buy four. It is driving smaller marts out of business, or is at least threatening their business.

The difficulty in obtaining licences for boats to carry live exports out of Ireland has long been a bugbear of mine. I have had meetings with officials in the Department who talk about the importance of animal welfare, particularly for our reputation. The animal welfare lobby is powerful, wherever it is funded from. There are suspicions that it is funded from within the beef business, but they are only suspicions.