“Disturbing” scenes aired in an RTÉ Investigates programme tonight (Monday, July 10) are not reflective of thousands of dairy farmers “who are already obeying all the rules around calf welfare”, the Irish Creamery Milk Suppliers Association (ICMSA) has said.
The president of the ICMSA, Pat McCormack, said that he and his members found the issues and footage from the RTÉ Investigates programme “disturbing and disappointing”.
“In the first instance, the blame and culpability for this mistreatment lies absolutely with the individuals involved and those supervisors who may have had knowledge of these cruel practices, but who failed to act.
“ICMSA expects the Department (of Agriculture Food and the Marine) to now investigate fully, and we know that they will be thorough and fair,” the ICMSA president said.
McCormack stressed that there are laws and regulations in relation to animal welfare that must be enforced and sanctions, including prosecution, which also must be enforced where there is clear evidence that laws and regulations have been breached.
But the president of the ICMSA said that the organisation and its members “rejected categorically” that the disturbing practices highlighted in the programme were “widespread or a norm”.
He said that the welfare and health of livestock was “the standard by which farmers rated and judged each other” and he underlined that it should be acknowledged that the country’s 18,000 dairy farmers were “already obeying all the rules around calf welfare”.
“It is unfair and wrong to find 18,000 dairy farmers culpable for the wrongs and abuses perpetrated by a small number,” McCormack said.
Meanwhile, the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine has condemned what he has described as the “shocking practices” on the RTÉ Investigates programme.
Minister Charlie McConalogue said that scenes, which showed the poor treatment of bull calves and a serious disregard of animal welfare requirements, were “not reflective of the work that farmers put into managing their farm enterprises responsibly”.
The Irish Farmers’ Association (IFA) has also called for an investigation by the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine (DAFM) into the mistreatment of calves shown in footage obtained by RTÉ to be “swift and thorough”.