It was appropriate for the Department of Agriculture to wait to shut down the horse slaughter facility at the centre of an RTÉ Investigates exposé until “visual evidence” emerged to back up allegations of animal welfare and traceability breaches, according to Minister for Agriculture Charlie McConalogue.

Shannonside Foods, Co Kildare, was ordered to cease operations two days after the programme on 12 June. It included footage which the Department said shows “suspected criminality”.

Minister McConalogue stated that his Department had been alerted to “breaches of animal welfare and traceability legislation” about three weeks prior to the programme airing.

He was responding to a series of questions on horse welfare and traceability put by Sinn Féin TD Réada Cronin.

Minister McConalogue maintains that the Department acted "very swiftly" once visual evidence emerged.

“It would not have been appropriate for the Department to take escalated action against the plant operator until there was visual evidence to substantiate the general and non-specific information that had been provided to it and when this became available, my Department acted very swiftly by revoking the plant’s approval two days after the broadcast,” the Minister said.

“Notwithstanding this, after the Department had been provided with specific information on this matter, it took appropriate action to ensure that no animals that were presented for slaughter were permitted to enter the food chain.

“This included the issuing of legal notice detaining all carcases presented for slaughter on 5 June.”

Carcase destruction

The Minister has said that none of the 65 carcases on hand at the facility at the time of closure entered the food chain and were destroyed under Department supervision.

They were destroyed in late June after the plant operator’s appeal on the destruction order was denied by Limerick District Court on 19 June.

Minister McConalogue noted that the Food Safety Authority of Ireland (FSAI) and the Department attended a meeting convened by the European Commission on 26 June to discuss “issues around equine traceability highlighted by the recent RTÉ programme”.

On 20 June, the FSAI issued a food fraud notification across an EU-wide food safety system to alert other member states, particularly France, of “concerns about previous trade to an establishment in France”.

Horse slaughter numbers

Further questions on the matter of horse slaughter were asked by Sinn Féin TD Brian Stanley.

In these responses, Minister McConalogue cited figures which show that the number of horses slaughtered annually is now around 10% of the peak throughput over recent years.

He said that the economic downturn in 2008 saw a large increase in unwanted horses being sent for slaughter.

The figure peaked at 24,000 horses being sent for slaughter in 2012, which fell to just 2,000 last year.

The number of abandoned horses being seized by local authorities has also reduced significantly from 5,000 in 2014 to fewer than 500 annually in recent years.