Joe Flaherty (Longford-Westmeath, Fianna Fail)
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I thank the witnesses for coming here today. I will try not to go back over old ground. The Chair already referred to the most startling point in Mr. Sheahan's opening statement. This is the admission that nobody ever visited the building where most of this took place. It is cloaked, to some degree, by saying it was not part of the lairage, but it was covered by general animal welfare regulations that apply to all holdings where animals are kept. I grew in an idyllic rural area on the edge of a small town. To give some context, there were three women who used to walk from the town every evening. They knew nothing about farming but they used to walk down a quiet boreen. One evening they said that the cattle were lowing a lot in that slatted shed. On the second evening they asked the farmer was there something wrong with the cattle and he said no, "That's just an ould fashion they have" . However, on the third evening it was still the same and one of them went home and felt uncomfortable about it and decided to make a phone call about it. That call resulted in a major animal cruelty case. I find it astonishing that a vet and two officials visited on the day of the slaughter and nobody ever checked the building. Mr. Sheahan himself attended the premises three years ago. Has any Department official ever visited that building?