Heather Humphreys (Cavan-Monaghan, Fine Gael)
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230. To ask the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine his views on setting up a scheme whereby horses with stamped out passports can be slaughtered at a registered abattoir, tested for banned substances, and, depending on the result, allow the meat either enter the food chain or be sent for destruction; if this process could be operated on a similar basis to the system used for the BSE testing of cows; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [10286/14]

Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael)
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Under EU legislation (EU Directive 2001/82 and Regulation 504/2008), horses which have been treated with prohibited substances or whose passport has been stamped out of the food chain for any other reason, such as not having been identified within the mandatory period set down in EU legislation, cannot be slaughtered for human consumption. The exclusion of such horses from the human food chain was introduced by the EU for public health reasons and there is no prospect of this ban being lifted. In view of the fact that this is an EU requirement, it would be illegal to permit horses which had been stamped out of the food chain to enter the food chain following a negative test. My Department has no discretion in the matter.