Two men are helping gardaí with their inquiries following the discovery of an illegal abattoir in Co Monaghan.

The premises were raided by local gardaí as well as members of the Department of Agriculture’s Special Investigation Unit (SIU) on Saturday morning at around 10.30am.

The raid came after months of monitoring of the premises and investigations by An Garda Síochána and the SIU. The abattoir was being operated in a local farmer’s shed on the Clones to Newbliss road in Monaghan.

It is understood that the two men were caught slaughtering two goats. One of the men is local to the area while the second man is understood to be of African extraction. The local man is part of a family that are well-known to the gardaí. The two men were not arrested at the scene as operating an unregistered abattoir is not an offence for which someone can be charged.

A file is being prepared for the Director of Public Prosecutions.

Prime Time

A report on the RTÉ programme Prime Time last week showed that 555 cattle have been stolen from Irish farms between 2012 and the present day. The show discovered that in the same period, just shy of 2,000 sheep had been stolen.

This claim was rejected by deputy chief veterinary officer Paula Barry Walsh, who told the programme that the “the scale of sheep rustling is actually smaller again than the overall cattle problem”.

Last week’s segment on cattle rustling drew the highest viewership for the programme so far this season.