75% of citizens in Ireland want EU to 'reallocate agricultural funds away from cages'

75% of citizens in Ireland want the EU to “reallocate agricultural funds away from cages”, according a new survey released this week.

The Irish Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ISPCA) has released the results of a survey, conducted by data company YouGov, that explores EU citizens’ attitudes towards the use of cages in animal farming across the EU.

75% of citizens in Ireland feel that the EU should reallocate current agricultural funds to support a transition away from using cages in animal farming. 80% of citizens in Ireland feel that using cages in farming is cruel.

The opinion poll also provides an insight into the beliefs of Irish citizens on the way the EU ensures the welfare of farmed animals and allocates relevant agricultural funds. More specifically, according to the results:

80% of citizens in Ireland agree or strongly agree that using cages in farming is “cruel to the animals being farmed”;
59% of citizens in Ireland tend to disagree or strongly disagree that the EU is “doing enough to ensure the welfare of all farmed animals”;
An average of 16% of the participants across the EU do not know whether the EU is doing enough to ensure the welfare of all farmed animals;
75% of citizens in Ireland agreed or strongly agreed that the EU should “reallocate current agricultural funds to support a transition away from using cages” in animal farming, while only 17% of Irish participants disagreed or strongly disagreed.

CEO of the ISPCA Dr. Andrew Kelly said that this new survey “provides more evidence on what we have known for years”.

‘We expect EU institutions to do the right thing’

“Citizens in Ireland strongly care about the welfare of farmed animals. And, they clearly recognise what the EU fails to do – that a transition away from cages in farming is the way forward,” he said.

“These results add yet another strong argument to the immediate change EU citizens want for farmed animals.

The debate is no longer whether the EU should move away from cages, but when and how this will be done.

“We expect the EU institutions to do the right thing, for their citizens and for more than 300 million farmed animals across the EU.”

Animal welfare after Brexit

Meanwhile, in the Dáil this week, Kildare North TD Bernard Durkan asked the Minister of State at the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine Martin Heydon the extent to which animal health, husbandry and processing standards applicable throughout the country and the EU will continue to be observed in full after Brexit.

Minister Hayden said that EU legislation provides for a “set of harmonised rules to ensure that food and feed are safe, and to ensure a high level of human, animal and plant health, as well as animal welfare along the agri-food chain”.

“Primary responsibility for ensuring that the obligations set out in union legislation are met rests with operators,” the minister said.

“The official controls regulation is clear that the responsibility to enforce union agri-food chain legislation lies with member states, whose competent authorities monitor and verify, through the implementation of official controls, that relevant union requirements are effectively complied with and enforced.”

The Department of Agriculture is one such authority and other departments and state agencies also have a role in this regard, the deputy noted.

He said the department will “continue to meet its obligations in respect of the official controls regulation, irrespective of Brexit”.

‘Our requirements do not change’

“From January 1, 2021, obligations to carry out official controls will continue to apply equally across all EU member states, including in respect of the need to carry out sanitary and phytosanitary checks on imports of animals and goods from all third countries, including Great Britain,” the minister continued.

“In this regard, my department has invested significantly in staffing, IT and infrastructure to ensure that it is able to continue to efficiently carry out the official controls on goods entering Ireland from Great Britain after the end of the transition period.

Animal health, animal husbandry and processing standards are applicable throughout the country and the EU, and they will continue in full after Brexit.

“Our requirements do not change. What changes is the fact Britain becomes a third country, so the amount of those checks and balances we have to put in place will be greatly enhanced because of our very significant trade with Great Britain.

“It makes it all the more important to, hopefully, get a trade deal over the line in the next couple of days.”