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

Last night's "RTÉ Investigates" programme was, to say the least, uncomfortable watching. There is a lot to consider in the context of a European horsemeat trade that needs our attention in this House, but I want to focus for today on what we saw in Shannonside Foods Limited in Straffan. It was completely unacceptable and we need to deal with it very firmly. There was a horse in a crush being punched in the face, horses being beaten and whipped with a long length of piping, horses being allowed to fall and injure themselves in filthy conditions, and injured horses being shot on the ground to put them down in totally inappropriate circumstances. We saw what looked like, and I say "what looked like" because I do not want to prejudice any legal case in the future, horses having microchips inserted in their necks before slaughter to effectively change their identity, presumably to allow them to enter the human food chain inappropriately and, I suspect, illegally to increase their value. We saw completely inappropriate and, I also suspect, illegal treatment of animals of various ages and conditions.

I have been a Minister in the Department of agriculture and I know how abattoirs and how holding systems work. I have been around horses all of my life. They are amazing animals and they are, we should not forget, what makes it possible to have a horse industry in this country that is worth billions of euro per year and employs approximately 30,000 people, so we need to protect it. First and foremost, we need to protect these precious animals but second, we need to protect the reputation of an industry which is fragile today.

I want to ask three questions. First, while the filming of the cruelty and fraud we saw last night was in a holding building rather than in the actual abattoir nearby, I find it hard to believe that Department of agriculture vets raised no suspicions of maltreatment of horses given their regular presence at the slaughter facility close by. Have there been any reports from our Department vets raising concerns about welfare or identity fraud? This is, after all, the only operating horse abattoir in the country, so surely experienced vets would have seen horses in the kind of condition we saw yesterday coming into the abattoir and would have raised questions. Second, is Shannonside Foods Limited in Straffan still operating this week as an equine slaughter facility under the existing management? If so, why? It should not be operating until we have a lot more clarity in terms of the investigation that is under way. Third, will the Minister please outline in some detail the penalties in law for this level of animal cruelty and potential fraud in the context of falsifying a horse's microchip pre-slaughter in the inappropriate and, I suspect, illegal way we saw on film last night?

This issue needs to be dealt with a firmness and urgency necessary to reassure the public and those involved in the horse industry that the Irish State will not tolerate wanton cruelty to horses or allow an illegal compromising of the human food chain for profit given the fact that much of the horsemeat that leaves this country is for human consumption in other parts of Europe.

I have other questions but I would like those three addressed initially.

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