Brendan Smith (Cavan-Monaghan, Fianna Fail)
Link to this: Individually | In context

In accordance with Regulation (EC) No 1760/2000 establishing a system for the identification and registration of bovines and national legislation, it is obligatory to tag cattle. In addition each keeper of bovine animals is required to register a calf on the national Cattle Movement Monitoring System (CMMS) database within 27 days of birth. While there is no requirement for the micro-chipping or electronic identification of cattle, my Department is aware of a small number of farmers who, in addition to compulsory tagging, use electronic means of identification in the form of a rumen bolus for management purposes.

My Department adopts a very strict policy in relation to Ireland's cattle traceability system and conducts a range of checks to ensure compliance with tagging and registration of cattle for disease control and market reasons. To that end a number of animals (approximately 25) have been excluded from the food chain and destroyed due to tag tampering/tag switching during the last six months. There are a number of prosecutions pending in relation to further cases of suspected tag tampering. Officials from my Department have also seized a number of devices which have been modified for tag tampering purposes.

Details of successful prosecutions are listed in the following table: