Ireland South MEP Billy Kelleher has said that Ireland is “well above the European standards in terms of what it insists when transporting animals off the island of Ireland”.
The MEP described the recent situation whereby hundreds of cattle were stranded on a ship in the Mediterranean for over two months as a “complete breakdown and failure in competencies”, noting that “not every country takes animal husbandry and welfare seriously”.
In December, nearly 900 animals left the Spanish port of Cartagena. After a number of countries would not allow the animals to be disembarked over health concerns, veterinary experts concluded that the animals were to be culled, as Reuters reports.
Speaking at a plenary press briefing this week, Kelleher, who sits on the European Parliament’s Committee of Inquiry into Animal Transport, said that live animal exports are “critically important from an Irish perspective”.
“We need to move animals off the island of Ireland; so anything that diminishes the capacity to do that is obviously a threat to our agricultural industry and to the dairy industry in particular, because of the increase in the herd size,” he said.
‘Have we enough sanctions in place?’
He said that the committee is investigating “whether or not the European Commission, through the member states and various agencies, is actually enforcing Regulation No 1/2005”, which regulates the transport of live animals between EU countries.
“There’s two real important questions in that. One is internally, when we are transporting animals within the EU, have we got enough inspection processes in place? Have we enough sanctions in place? And, have we enough animal welfare standards in place?” Kelleher continued.
The other part of the committee’s investigation is in terms of moving animals out of the EU, into third countries and clearly that is an issue, a challenge.
“In other words, you could have very diligent, thorough animal welfare standards and inspection processes but once they [animals] leave the EU and arrive to the third country, what levels of animal husbandry and standards do they meet there?
“And that, of course, is an awful lot more difficult because you’re asking third countries then to enforce standards.
“We need to move animals off the island of Ireland; so anything that diminishes the capacity to do that is obviously a threat to our agricultural industry.”
‘Not every country takes animal transport seriously’
He said while “a lot of members” on the Committee of Inquiry into Animal Transport “may have defined views in terms of just banning live animal exports regardless”, the MEP added that under scrutiny, Ireland is “well above the European standards in terms of what it insists when transporting animals off the island of Ireland”.
“Ireland has been complimented so far by members of the committee in terms of what it has done, and more that we want to do, to ensure that there is safe, animal-friendly husbandry standards in place for the movement of animals,” he said.
“With regard to that particular issue in the Mediterranean, clearly that is a complete breakdown and failure in terms of member state competencies in overseeing the transportation of animals and that cannot be allowed.
And that is the difficulty in the EU. Not every country takes animal transport and animal welfare seriously and you can look at some countries where they have appalling abuse and this has to be rooted out.
“What we want is uniformity across the EU, where animals are transported with dignity and safety in terms of welfare and that there is no cruelty. And that simply is not being done by some member states.”