The Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine (DAFM) is to host a training session next month to increase “the pool of expert veterinarians” available to accompany live animal exports.
According to DAFM it has been involved in recent months in putting structures and procedures in place to “increase the frequency at which consignments to third countries are accompanied by an official veterinarian with a particular expertise in the transport of animals by sea”.
Last June 14 vets took part in a training process to enable them to accompany live animal exports from Ireland.
Further training sessions for additional vets are now scheduled to take place in March.
New rules were introduced by the European Commission last year in relation to welfare on ships exporting live animals.
These rules required that an “official veterinarian” travels on board the first voyage with livestock to a third country after a ship approval inspection.
According to DAFM “typically” one vet is present on board throughout the first voyage.
Live animal exports
The Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine, Charlie McConalogue, recently told the Dáil that Ireland has “introduced national rules with regard to the transport of livestock on dedicated livestock vessels which goes above and beyond the relevant EU rules”.
Minister McConalogue said that Ireland uses the services of “marine engineers together with specialised official veterinarians, for the inspections of vessels applying to be approved to carry livestock from Ireland”.
DAFM has confirmed that initial registration and training on the new European Maritime Safety Agency (EMSA) THETIS-EU platform – which supports inspections of livestock vessels aimed at safeguarding animal welfare and shares reports between members states – has begun.
According to the department this will facilitate the recording of reports from “official controls carried out on dedicated livestock vessels by veterinarians and marine surveyors”.
Minister McConalogue has previously outlined that for a livestock vessel to gain approval to carry animals from an Irish port, Ireland requires that it must:
- Fly the flag of a country listed in the ‘white list’ (published by the Paris memorandum of Understanding on Port State Control);
- Have its statutory certificates issued by a recognised organisation with a performance level recorded as high and be operated by a company with a performance level not listed as low or very low.