Charlie McConalogue (Donegal, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

There have been significant actions in the past ten years to improve the traceability and identification of horses. In 2014, the central equine database was introduced. Prior to that, microchipping was introduced. More recently, since 2021 an annual horse census takes place and their places of residence must be registered with the Department too. There has been an online portal since last year where any member of the public can check a horse microchip and see the full record of the horse. We are also progressing e-passports for horses, which will digitise it and mean the information is available in real time as well as improving traceability.

It will also be important that we work across Europe to make sure the cross-European system is robust. We need to work further on this to make sure, given the journey travelled in recent years, that we get to a point where the system is very robust, not only in our own country but at European level.

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