Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Thursday, 18 June 2015

Public Accounts Committee

2013 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 30 - Agriculture, Food and the Marine

10:00 am

Mr. Aidan O'Driscoll:

That is all I am saying. Again, I am not a veterinary expert but my clear understanding, and I have talked to all our senior veterinary experts about this, is that the use of a humane killer, as it is called, and as Mr. Galvin called it, for putting down a pig is normal, but one normally also has to hand what are called pithing rods. Quite specifically in the report of our vets on the spot, they noted that he had pithing rods available to him.