Michael Fitzmaurice (Roscommon-Galway, Independent)
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1186. To ask the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine the number of beef carcasses under 30 months that have been exported worldwide in each of the years 2018 to 2020; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [1806/21]

Charlie McConalogue (Donegal, Fianna Fail)
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Trade data from the CSO shows the volume and value of all beef exported for 2018, 2019 and January to October 2020. The full CSO trade stats for 2020 will not be available until mid-February 2021.

This data is not broken down by age at slaughter. The data does not relate directly to individual carcasses, rather it is categorised by CN code which reflects products as exported.  It is not possible to correlate the volume of meat exported to individual carcasses from the data available.

However, it should be noted that 71% of the approximately 1.3 million beef breed bovines slaughtered annually in both 2018 and 2019 were 30 months or less. This data and related data on slaughter patterns is contained in this Department's Animal Identification and Movement (AIM) annual reports which are available on my Department's website.

In the region of 90% of Irish beef is exported each year.