Dáil Éireann Debate, Wednesday - 8 May 2013
7. Deputy Derek Keating asked the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine his plans to introduce a centralised system for horse passports; if horse passports will cover those of certain breeds and who are for export or will every horse in the State be required, like canine registration, to be chipped and hold a passport irrespective of travel, transportation, sale or movement; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [21406/13]
Amharc ar fhreagra20. Deputy Derek Keating asked the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine his plans for passports in respect of horses in the State; if he will outline the terms and conditions of his plans; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [21407/13]
Amharc ar fhreagraI propose to take Questions Nos. 7 and 20 together.
My response will be technical but I will give the Deputy a more direct response to supplementary questions he might have.
The identification and registration of horses is governed by EU Council Directives 90/426/EEC and 90/427/EEC and Commission Regulation (EC) No. 504/2008 of 2008. The EU legislation has been transposed into national legislation. Regulation 504/2008 came into effect in July 2009. It provides that if an equine animal has not been identified within six months of the date of its birth, or by 31 December in the year of its birth, whichever date occurs later, it cannot be admitted to the food chain. It also provides that all equine animals registered after that date must be identified with a passport and a microchip. However, equines identified prior to that date in accordance with EU regulations then in force are not required by EU legislation to be microchipped, and it is not open to me to impose such a requirement on them.
With regard to the issuing of passports, Regulation No. 504/2008 provides that, in the case of horses that qualify for registration with a breed society, the passport must be issued by the relevant breed society. At present, nine passport-issuing organisations are approved to issue passports in Ireland, although some have been suspended temporarily.
I announced in March that I would like to see the establishment of a single passport issuing organisation. I noted, however, that this would necessitate an amendment to EU legislation. Subsequently, the EU Commission published an action plan for dealing with the fall-out from the horsemeat issue, indicating that it intended to submit a proposal to the agriculture Council of Ministers and the European Parliament to amend existing legislation to provide that competent authorities take over responsibility for issuing passports. A formal Commission proposal is expected in the second half of 2013. I will move to the final stage in the establishment of a single passport-issuing agency once EU legislation provides me with the overarching legal base to put this into effect. In the meantime, my Department is engaged in discussions with the passport-issuing agencies with a view to enhancing the controls on passports at all stages of the process, including veterinary certification, quality of the paper used and security features.
In line with a commitment I gave earlier in the year, my Department has taken significant steps to establish a central equine database on the animal identification and movement, AIM, system. Data for over 70% of equine animals registered with the passport issuing organisations since 1 January 1980 were downloaded onto the central database in recent days. The central database will include information from records obtained at slaughter plants, knackeries, sales and live exports. The information on the central equine database will be used by my Department's veterinary staff to supplement current checks at slaughterhouses, in particular that horses presented for slaughter have been correctly identified and are eligible for slaughter and the human food chain.
I am satisfied that I have acted swiftly, as I promised I would do, to deal with the issues arising from the equine DNA issue.
I thank the Minister for his comprehensive reply. A major problem has arisen in parts of my constituency, Clondalkin and Lucan, and in other urban communities in recent years in regard to wild and uncontrolled horses. I have had the sad experience of witnessing the removal of dead horses on a number of occasions. It is a problem that is not going away. While many groups in my area have, because of their special love of horses, taken an interest in this issue, ultimately, it is left to the local authorities to deal with it. It is a costly and time consuming exercise and requires ongoing security when horses need to be impounded, etc.
With regard to the illegal export of horses for the food chain, I congratulate the Minister on his work in this area.
A question, please.
I have a couple of questions for the Minister. Is he and the Minister for Justice and Equality satisfied that there is sufficient legislation in place to deal with the issue of uncontrolled and wild horses? In terms of financing, how is it proposed to address this issue? Will local authorities continue to be burdened with the cost in this regard? On the sale of horses within the State, will the exercise of this control be obligatory? For example, will the proposed system be similar to that in place for the registration of a car or a truck?
Uncontrolled horses present an issue, as do abandoned horses. The number of horse owners has reduced dramatically in the past five years. Many people bought horses either for themselves or their children when they could afford to do so. One of the consequences of the recession is that many people can no longer afford to keep horses. In some cases, this has resulted in the abandonment of animals. Another issue is that of people who own horses but do not own land and are using public land on which to graze them. In many cases, there is not sufficient grass available for them, particularly this year.
I have been involved in a number of extreme horse welfare cases in Cork city, in which the Department had to intervene and put down a number of animals because of the condition they were in and in which horses had been found dead in fields in urban areas, which is totally unacceptable. Some of the horses were taken to the horse pound, reclaimed by their owners and found for a second or third time in an emaciated condition, which is also totally unacceptable.
The Animal Health and Welfare Bill 2012 which some Members may have been involved in amending and which, following approval by the Seanad, will be enacted introduces significant new powers in holding animal owners to account. Also, we are providing additional funding for local authorities to microchip impounded horses. This will ensure, should horses be claimed and we need to prosecute in the future, that we will know who owns them. This is about holding people to account in terms of their responsibilities in animal ownership. They need to know there are consequences for the abuse or abandonment of animals. Developing systems to manage the problem of uncontrolled or stray horses is a delicate process because one must balance people's right to own an animal and all of the benefits that come from this with ensuring animals are not abused.
I thank the Minister for his understanding of the problem which people in my constituency and other urban areas are experiencing. I appreciate that the new legislation will be of great assistance in holding animal owners to account. I also welcome the Minister's announcement that additional funding will be provided to assist local authorities in addressing this issue. The Minister referred to the use of microchips in endeavouring to control this problem, which I welcome. I thank the Minister for engaging in this subject and his satisfactory reply.
I will allow brief supplementaries from Deputies Anthony Lawlor, Pat Deering, Thomas P. Broughan and Mick Wallace.
The Minister has stated that among the information stored on passports will be information on drugs administered to a horse and, where necessary, a veterinary stamp indicating the animal is not fit for human consumption. Has account been taken of drugs which could be out of the blood stream prior to an animal being passed fit for human consumption?
I welcome the additional funding provided to assist local authorities in dealing with this issue, which is a problem in every local authority area. Does the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine communicate with local authorities on how best to alleviate it? Also, how many horses, without passports, are there in the country? Would it be worth considering an amnesty for the owners of horses without a passport in order to alleviate the problem? Come next winter, the same problem could arise again.
I too welcome the Minister's announcements on mircochipping and passports. When I first raised this issue with him last autumn, I was struck by how little he knew about the horse industry.
Come on.
The Minister could not give me an answer.
To what question?
The Minister did not know how many horses were slaughtered, the level of exports, production levels in different slaughterhouses and so on. He did not have a clue.
The Deputy never asked me those questions.
They are on the Dáil record. It is shameful, given the role of the horse in the agriculture sector and our culture generally. What is the timeframe for the introduction of microchipping? Will the racing industry which we continue to subsidise considerably make a contribution towards the protection of horses?
How does the Minister respond to the statement by Dr. Thomas Reed of The Warmblood Studbook of Ireland, one of the organisations approved to issue horse passports, that the proposed database is a creature of political necessity and will be a band aid effort, rather than the response needed to protect the food chain, that the database will not improve human health or stamp out fraud and that new control measures and regulations are required?
I will respond first to Deputy Mick Wallace's point on the statement made by Dr. Thomas Reed. He is not the person who decides on policy in Ireland. However, he is correct that the database will not solve all problems. However, I never claimed it would. We are introducing a database because it is the right thing to do and we said we would do so. We want to have a handle on the numbers of horses in Ireland. In time, every horse in the country will be microchipped and have a passport. This will ensure we will have the same knowledge of the horse sector, in terms of the types of horses owned, where they are and who owns them, as we do of the beef sector. That is the reason for having a centralised database. I want to go further, which is what I believe people like Dr. Reed would like me to do. We also want to have a centralised body for issuing passports in order that we can impose the controls and standards required in terms of the need for accuracy.
Some of the current issuing bodies are very good at what they do. Some such as Weatherbys, Horse Sport Ireland - I do not want to pick and choose between the two of them - and others do a very good job and we will be working with them but, ultimately, I want my Department to have central control of the standards for the issuing of equine passports, microchips and any other identification systems we may introduce. I have said clearly in my answer today that once the European Commission gives us the green light to do that, we will press ahead and do it. It will bring forward a proposal to change EU regulations in this area to allow us do that in the second half of this year.
Deputy Broughan is clearly a great horseman. I do not recall not being able to answer questions he asked.
The Minister has no answers or figures.
All I can do-----
The Minister does not even know how many animals there are.
-----is stand over my record in terms of responding to a horsemeat crisis that became a European crisis that began in Ireland and I think we dealt with that in a professional, detailed and very accurate way.
I am talking about the substantive issue.
The substantive issue is what?
It is the animals and their welfare.
Yes, it is, which is why we-----
The Minister knew nothing about it. He could not even give me the information.
For a man who is so concerned about animal welfare I do not recall one contribution he made on the Animal Health and Welfare Bill which was debated in this House for about ten hours.
I am not allowed to speak on Second Stage.
The Deputy probably did not even know it was being taken.
The Leas-Cheann Comhairle knows that and so does the Minister.
If the Deputy was concerned I am sure he would have made contact with me informally.
I did. I tried my best.
The Deputy is a bluffer on this issue and that is the reality.
I have asked the Minister questions which he has not answered.
To answer Deputy Deering's point, there was in effect an amnesty in Ireland when the new requirements on passports and microchips were introduced to give people a chance to catch up with that new regulation. We cannot introduce another amnesty. The rules are the rules. Everybody understands, or should understand, the rules at this stage. We need to educate people and implement them. Getting a microchip and a passport for a horse is not a particularly expensive process. We must be clear and uncompromising in terms of imposing the rules and regulations.
On the use of drugs in horses, testing can be done in factories, as we do for phenylbutazone in particular, to ensure horses do not go into the human food chain if they should not go into it. That is because "bute" remains in an animal's system for many years once it has been applied. The reason we only use "bute" testing is that it is a test to determine whether animals have been given veterinary medicines that may be inappropriate to enter the human food chain. However, I will examine what the Deputy requested, namely, whether there are more detailed and comprehensive tests that could be used in an affordable way to try to screen horses more directly because there is a problem now in Ireland in terms of what to do with sport horses that have been treated that are reaching the end of their days. The number of horses that have been going to knackeries has significantly increased. That involves a cost for the owner rather than the opposite being the case, namely, getting payment for a horse if it is brought to a factory for processing for human consumption.
