Seanad debates

Thursday, 14 July 2022

9:30 am

Photo of Tim LombardTim Lombard (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

It is great to be here on this last day of the Seanad. This is a very important motion which gives us the opportunity to debate where we are in the agricultural sector with regard to animal health, in particular the issues pertaining to the motion.

If we look at what the farming community has done in recent decades, there has been dramatic and huge change in practices and in education. There is a great need for that education to continue. I have often spoken about issues like the age profile of our farming communities as they are of a certain demographic, and how we engage them is very important. One of the key issues in terms of how we engage them is through discussion groups, which have proven to be very successful in trying to get the information out there. Discussion groups are basically groups of farmers who meet once a month on a farm to go over practices. It is training on a farm on a continuous basis, which is a very important part of how we can get that education into the system.

In the debate this morning, we have used figures about live exports. I believe we need to bring clarity to those figures and the Minister of State might clarify this point. A figure of 400,000 pigs was mentioned in the Chamber this morning in regard to exports. The Minister of State might clarify that the information on the Department website is that over 375,000 of those went to Northern Ireland for slaughter and did not leave the island. Even though they are down as exports, they did not go near any ship. The Minister of State needs to clarify that to make sure the wrong message does not go out from her Department. On the issue of unweaned live calves being moved, the Minister of State might elaborate on the 13-hour limit regarding feeding and how that is tied in. That is a very important statistic and, again, that piece of information is on the Department’s website. Those issues need to be clarified because the public might get the idea that unweaned calves are spending weeks on a boat, not 13 hours, which is a significant figure. They also might get the idea that hundreds of thousands of pigs are being sent abroad, when they are not even leaving the island. What is for export and what is moving off the island needs to be clarified in this debate.

We also need to clarify the work of the committee, of which I am Vice Chairman, in particular the amount of work it has done on the greyhound industry. We have had some very tough meetings with the industry in the last few years and there have been changes. In the Minister of State's response, she might acknowledge the tracing issue that has emerged, how that has been enacted by the greyhound industry and how the traceability issue has been brought forward, somewhat following the agricultural bovine system of tracing every animal.

Other Members will know more about the exotic animals issue than I do. There is a significant deficit in that regard, and those Members with greater knowledge will probably speak on that. However, there is a need for work to be done on that issue. Other Senators also have greater knowledge of issues relating to dogs than I do. There is significant work to be done there.

The hearings we have had at the Joint Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine in the past six or eight months have been a learning experience for me. Politics aside, there is great knowledge in this Chamber. We need to bring forward real recommendations and legislation on these issues. Getting the right information, as per the Department and its website, out of this debate is important. I look forward to the Minister of State's response in that regard. She might clarify the figures that were mentioned in order to make sure the House is not misled.

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