Jackie Cahill (Tipperary, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

We will have a private meeting in the morning to discuss the outcome of these three meetings and we will be making various recommendations. I am sure traceability in the horse industry will be one of the matters that comes up so we will discuss that in the morning. We have had our three meetings and we will have to sit down as a committee and see what recommendations we want to make and what observations we have had as a result of those three meetings.

I thank the officials from the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine for engaging with us. The "Panorama" programme influenced the meeting. It was not on the agenda but serious questions were raised in that programme last night. That is something the committee will be revisiting as quickly as possible. The witnesses said earlier in the day that we have two abattoirs in this country. There is a question over how many horses are euthanised there and various questions were asked but I keep going back to the fact that a microchip appeared in an abattoir in Swindon in a horse that had been euthanised six years beforehand. That really brings the authenticity of microchipping into question. The Department will investigate that.

In the "Panorama" programme last night it was stated that there were numerous cases of horses with two microchips appearing in that abattoir. Do we have any instances of horses appearing in an abattoir in Ireland with two microchips? Will there be correspondence between the abattoir in Swindon and the Department to get further information from that abattoir and from the officials there about what the incidence of horses appearing with two microchips is and how many of those have involved Irish horses? I will not go back to the witnesses for answers today but there are a lot of questions arising from last night's programme and it did not do the reputation of horse racing any good.

As I said previously, it is not all thoroughbreds that are going into that abattoir. I would like to get the figures on how many are thoroughbreds and there are a lot of other horses going in there as well. Horse welfare is universal and it is not just confined to thoroughbreds. Any horse being mistreated is completely and utterly unacceptable. As Senator Paul Daly said previously, one would be abhorred to be a horse owner and see the way horses were being treated in that abattoir. It raised questions. We will be returning to that programme and we will be coming back to the Department to get answers on how Ireland operates euthanasia. Unfortunately, when a horse has a serious injury or has certain ailments, euthanasia is the most humane way to treat that animal but it has to be done under veterinary control and in a supervised manner. Last night's programme left an awful lot of questions to be answered and it is something we will return to with the Department in the near future.