Agriculture Minister Charlie McConalogue received 140 complaints after RTÉ horse abattoir exposé
Dozens of people asked how it could be that the Department of Agriculture had never uncovered the horrendous welfare issues at Shannonside Foods in Straffan, Co Kildare.
A total of 137 separate complaints were logged by the department, with one asking “how long this abuse” had been going on.
“Rest assured that our international reputation as horse lovers and racing enthusiasts is now in tatters,” read another. “I for one will never attend racing again.”
Another person wrote to say they were “appalled, upset, horrified and angry once again” over the latest in a series of high-profile stories about animal cruelty in the agriculture sector.
Many of the emails questioned why it was RTÉ that kept finding out about these welfare issues. One wrote: “Why has it taken journalists to identify this? What is your department doing so wrong that this has been allowed to happen?”
Another email said: “Whipping, punching, slapping of animals in horrific conditions, changing of identities, spray cans being used to conceal real identities. Dead animals lying around, dead foals dragged across the floor. What does it take for your department to take action?”
Other members of the public said it was not just Shannonside Foods that needed to be investigated, but the entire inspection system itself.
“The department should surely have been able to keep check on the only [horse] abattoir in this country,” one complainant wrote.
“You should have been allowed walk every inch of that property at Shannonside — and if there was any no-go area, that should have been a red flag. You are as much to blame… for not doing your job.”
Yet another wrote: “The checks carried out in this hellhole were completely inadequate. The responsibility lies with your department.”
Other people criticised of the department’s position that it did not have access to the lairage where much of the worst cruelty was inflicted.
One complainant asked: “What are the Department of Agriculture inspectors doing every day? How is it that a TV programme can produce all this evidence about the horse industry and you know nothing about it?”
Another wrote: “How can this abuse of animals, under the noses of the Department of Agriculture, still be happening in 2024?”
Some wrote about the programme being so upsetting that they were unable to watch it to the end.
“Every fibre of my being was in distress,” one said, while another wrote of their “horror, revulsion and actual disbelief” at what had been uncovered by reporter Conor Ryan and his team.
Asked about the records, a spokesman for the department said they were not aware of any complaints being made about Shannonside Foods in advance of the RTÉ investigation.
“Since 2018, five complaints were received … in relation to horses on land adjacent to the Shannonside premises,” he said.
“All five — two of which related to the same individual lame horse — were followed up by the department at the time of the complaints.”
The spokesman said a criminal investigation into the welfare issues highlighted by the RTÉ Investigates programme was continuing, and the approval for Shannonside as a slaughter facility had been revoked.
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