Marcella Corcoran Kennedy (Laois-Offaly, Fine Gael)
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To ask the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine if he intends to introduce an Irish equine identification scheme similar to that of the Irish beef identification scheme which has four elements: tagging, bovine passport, on-farm bovine herd registers and a computerised database; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [7032/13]

Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael)
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The identification of equidae is governed by EU Council Directives 90/426/EEC and 90/427/EEC and Commission Regulation (EC) No 504/2008 of 6 June 2008. The latter regulation, came into effect on 1 July 2009, provides that equine animals registered after that date must be identified with a passport and a microchip.

The EU legislation has been transposed into national legislation via S.I. No. 357 of 2011 - European Communities (Equine) Regulations 2011 (as amended). This legislation provides that if an equine animal has not been identified within six months of the date of its birth, or by the 31 December in the year of its birth, whichever date occurs later, then the equine animal cannot be admitted to the food chain. S.I. No 357 of 2011 was amended in September 2012 by S.I. 371 of 2012 in order to strengthen the powers of the Minister in relation to approval of an issuing body for equine passports and prosecutions in relation to equine identification and to make it an offence to forge or tamper with an equine passport.

My Department introduced enhancedlegislation and procedures in relation to the registration of horse premises such that, from 1 May 2012, anyone who is the owner/person in charge of any premises on which horses are kept is required to register the premises with my Department. Keepers seeking to register equines are required to have a herd number registered with my Department and to keep records of movements on/off their premises.

My Department also introduced enhanced procedures for the slaughter of horses in abattoirs in October 2011 and communicated these and the checks required both to its staff and the business operators. These procedures provide that an official veterinarian must be present in a meat plant when slaughtering is taking place. All animals are subject to an antemortem inspection, which includes an identification check, by an official veterinarian prior to slaughter. Where forged or tampered passports accompanying horses to slaughter are detected, it is Department policy that such animals are destroyed and removed from the food chain.

My Department is developing a central database of horses which will involve migration of selected data from Passport Issuing Organisations to the Department and may include information from records obtained at slaughter plants, knackeries, sales and live exports. The intention is that this database will be used at abattoirs to verify the authenticity of the passport for the equine presented and to record its date of slaughter.

As indicated above, the legislative basis for the identification of equines resides in EU legislation, as transposed into Irish legislation, and it is not open to me unilaterally to apply the EU provisions relating to the identification of bovines to the equidae sector. Apart from this, not all components of the cattle system would be appropriate for equines, not least the requirement to use tags in both ears. However, I will continue to review existing legislation to establish if a need exists to bring forward further provisions to strengthen the traceability system for horses.