Vol. 494 No. 4
99 Proinsias De Rossa asked the Minister for Agriculture and Food the number of cattle seized to date in 1998 which were believed to have been smuggled from Northern Ireland; if he has satisfied himself that inspection and detection procedures are adequate, particularly in view of the reports that smugglers have been injecting silicone into the ears to disguise the facts that cattle have been retagged; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [18412/98]
A total of 334 animals which were determined to have been illegally imported from Northern Ireland have been seized to date in 1998. Of these 157 have been slaughtered and rendered with the resulting material subsequently exported for incineration. The rest of the animals are being held under Department control awaiting the results of forensic and other investigations.
My Department has specific procedures in place at cattle slaughter plants to determine both the origin and health status of animals presented for slaughter. These include: the checking of eartags and accompanying documentation by meat plant staff under the supervision of officers of the Department; physical inspection of the cattle identity card to reconcile the eartag information on the card with an eartag affixed to the individual animal and, in case of doubt, the eartag number and herd number data can be and are verified by reference to a computer data base, by entering the information on the PC in the veterinary office.
The action taken where the data base query shows an anomaly or where, in the view of the veterinary officer in charge, there is cause for doubt or suspicion depends on the circumstances involved. Officers of my Department, with the assistance of other enforcement agencies, carry out surveillance and inspections elsewhere to deter and detect illegal movement of cattle. While use of silicone has been detected in a small number of cases, there is no evidence of its use on a widespread basis.
I am confident that the measures in place at factories and other areas are providing adequate safeguards to ensure that the prohibition on the illegal importation of cattle is being properly enforced. These measures will be further enhanced with the introduction of computerised monitoring of cattle movement.
