Jackie Cahill (Tipperary, Fianna Fail)
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I thank Mr. Gleeson. Before I go to the members, I want to focus on his first priority, which is to "promote and safeguard public, animal and plant health, and animal welfare, for the benefit of consumers, producers, the economy and wider society". We had a committee meeting last week at which I and many other members expressed grave disappointment at what happened in the horse slaughter plant. It has done the country as a whole a lot of reputational damage. It was horrific to see what was happening, under what we would consider to be the surveillance of the Department. It should not happen and there is a lot of remedial work to be done to make sure it does not happen again.

I asked a couple of questions at the previous meeting to which I felt I did not get satisfactory answers. Let us leave the welfare issue to one side for the moment. A significant number of horses are not currently microchipped, and a significant number of them are entering the food chain. They are leaving this jurisdiction, getting paperwork elsewhere, and finding their way into the food chain either in the UK or on the Continent. How can we have confidence in a system that allows a percentage of the horses in the sector not to be microchipped? There is 100% compliance in the bovine sector. If an animal is not tagged within 21 days, you get a fairly stiff letter from the Department. That system works exceptionally well. This is a time bomb waiting to go off. We must learn lessons from the "RTÉ Investigates" programme we saw.

For me personally as a TD, my patience has run out with people not complying with existing legislation. In my constituency, we had three accidents with horses in the last couple of months where there were cases of motorists and passengers being seriously injured. None of the horses that were involved in those accidents were microchipped. This situation cannot be allowed to continue. I say that from a road safety point of view. As Mr. Callanan knows well, there is Bord na Móna land in my constituency and a large herd of horses roam it. There are also horses on other public land. The same situation pertains around Clonmel where horses are roaming on lands owned by the HSE. Road safety is one issue, but the horses are being moved on and they are being sold. There is no traceability and they are finding their way into the food chain. It is at a point now where there is legislation on keeping animals and it must be enforced. The welfare issues that came to light in the factory were horrific, but welfare issues regarding horses are more widely evident.

The number of horses being impounded has been greatly reduced. Due to the prolonged period of voting of about two hours last week, I was not able to respond to a statement that was made at the meeting. In my county, the resources are not being put into impounding these horses. It is easy to say the numbers are reducing but if the resources are not put into impounding them, the figures will reduce. Today, a constituent was on to me who is being affected by these horses. They are trespassing on her property and there are serious welfare issues with the horses. Horsemeat is not on many menus in this country but Irish horsemeat is on menus across the European Union. We have a significant number of horses here that have no traceability.

We must learn lessons from the "RTÉ Investigates" programme. One aspect of it was welfare, in terms of what happened in the factory. We gave that a very good airing here last Wednesday evening. We were extremely disappointed that it could be allowed to happen. When the Department was before the committee three years previously we were told about a 51-page document outlining how things should be carried out in a slaughter plant. There is not much point in having a 51-page document if those kinds of incidents are happening in a lairage. Leaving aside welfare and what happened in the factory - investigations are ongoing - the lack of compliance among a certain cohort of the horse-owning population must be tackled as a matter of urgency.