Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I have been in many marts but the Deputy is correct in that such visits served electoral purposes. I have yet to have the opportunity to buy or sell a beast in a mart. Perhaps that time will come. We will look into this for the Deputy. At the start of the spring lockdown, marts were pretty much closed but we made arrangements to allow them to operate precisely for the reasons the Deputy suggests, including animal welfare and to ensure sales did not happen away from marts.

We will check up on that and see what we can do.

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