Bríd Smith (Dublin South Central, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

I certainly will be making a complaint to the ASAI. In fact, I think it has already gone in. This advertising of dairy and the manner in which it was done is absolute greenwashing and it is disgraceful. It is interesting it came in the same week RTÉ did the exposé on the level of cruelty to animals that takes place in that industry. Every year, the industry slaughters 35,000 male calves because they are absolutely useless and those that are exported for the veal industry are treated like they were vermin. Nobody in the country who has a heart would not have been shocked by the level of unnecessary cruelty seen in the RTÉ exposé. Then in the ad breaks we got a lovely, happy-clappy image of how that industry conducts itself.

What the Minister just claimed about the industry here having one of the lowest levels of emissions in the world is based on research conducted in 2004 and a report published in 2010. If he has a more up-to-date report, I ask him to share it. As far as I can see, the only other reports that head towards refuting what the Minister said come from the Environmental Protection Agency, EPA.

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