Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

It is important to separate the issues of the horsemeat scandal we are currently investigating and the question of whether we have appropriate checks in place to ensure that any horse slaughtered for human consumption has a valid passport and microchip. There is no evidence at the moment to suggest that there is any connection between horses that have been slaughtered in Ireland and the finding of horsemeat in Irish meat products. Nevertheless, the Deputy's question on what we are doing to ensure that horses are slaughtered properly, professionally and have appropriate passports and microchips is a perfectly valid one. Horses that do not have passports and microchips and which were not required to have them before 2009 cannot enter the food chain under the current rules. We carry out checks on a random basis in factories where we test meat for the presence of bute. We have asked local authorities to increase checks for bute in the facilities supervised by them and we have increased checks in facilities supervised by the Department for the very reasons outlined by Deputy Éamon Ó Cuív.

Only two factories continue to slaughter horses in Ireland as a number of factories decided to move away from that business. The boning hall which had been boning out horses has ceased to do so in recent weeks. Both slaughter houses which continue to slaughter horses have been under local authority supervision but the Department is taking over their supervision now. The larger exporting factories involved in the slaughter of horses had been supervised by the Department in the same way that beef factories were, while smaller operations were under local authority supervision. I am now insisting that all slaughtering of horses is directly under my Department's supervision. That will mean a permanent veterinary presence, which is required to be there anyway, for all horses being slaughtered. Obviously, the necessary checks and balances must be in place to ensure that no horse which lacks proper identification and paperwork enters the human food chain.

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