THE Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine (DAFM) received five complaints over a six-year period in relation to the welfare of horses at Shannonside Foods Ltd, Ireland’s only horse abattoir, which was shut down by the Department last week following an RTÉ Investigates exposé.

Speaking to the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) on Wednesday, the DAFM’s deputy chief veterinary officer, Michael Sheahan, said every one of the five complaints were investigated by experienced vets and did not require any further action. The complaints were received between 2018 and 2023.

“They were welfare complaints, but they were not complaints that were upheld. There were things along the lines of a thin horse or a lame horse in the field,” Sheahan told the committee. “We get over 1,000 complaints on our animal welfare helpline and we investigate every single one of them every year; 300 or 400 of them tend to be related to horses, because horses are quite visible.

“In all of the cases of the five complaints we got, we did not find something that merited prosecution or even the serving of a notice.”

James O’Connor, TD (FF), in his questioning asked did five complaints not raise alarm bells or encourage the Department to monitor the facility on a long-term basis. To which Sheahan replied: “We have done plenty of soul searching on what we can do differently.” Sheahan, who said the scenes from the programme were “one of the most sickening things I’ve ever seen”, assured the committee that any horses presented for slaughter were in good condition.

Movement of animals

The deputy chief vet was questioned by the committee chair, Brian Stanley, TD (SF), on where the horses that were on the lands at Shannonside Foods were moved to. Asked were they moved to other land belonging to the owner of the abattoir, Sheahan replied “that’s my understanding”. Asked who authorised the movement of those horses, the veterinary officer added: “I am in a difficult position to answer that. For the movement to happen legally, the Department would have to authorise it.”

In a statement to our sister paper, the Irish Farmers Journal, a DAFM spokesperson said: “The equine holding linked to the slaughter plant is subject to legal notice prohibiting the movement of equines into or out of those premises unless prior approval of the Department is granted. The Department is aware of the location of the animals. The Department cannot provide any further comment on these matters as they remain subject to active investigation, nor can it anticipate how long the investigation may take at this time.”

Separately, a court sitting in Limerick on Wednesday, ruled that the meat from 65 carcasses of horses that were slaughtered at Shannonside Foods Ltd earlier this month be destroyed due to concerns with the food chain information.