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Irish Creamery Milk Suppliers Association (ICMSA) president Pat McCormack has said he and his members found the issues and footage addressed in the RTÉ Investigates programme to be disturbing and disappointing.
The clear laws and regulations set out around the question of animal welfare must be enforced and sanctions – up to and including prosecution – must follow where clear evidence was present, the farm organisation leader said.
McCormack said that “a clear chain of responsibility and regulation existed” and it leads to “the body within whose remit fell all aspects of animal welfare: the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine”.
Cruel practices
“In the first instance, the blame and culpability for this mistreatment lies absolutely with the individuals involved and those supervisors who may have had knowledge of these cruel practices but who failed to act. [The} ICMSA expects the Department to now investigate fully - and we know that they will be thorough and fair.”
The blame and culpability for this mistreatment lies absolutely with the individuals involved
McCormack added that the ICMSA, and farmers in general, rejected categorically any suggestion that this kind of abuse was widespread or a norm.
He said that the welfare and health of their stock was the standard by which farmers rated and judged each other and he appealed for those both reporting the story and responding to the issues raised to address the specific wrongdoing and wrongdoers and not to “go their usual route”, where a vast majority was made pay for the abuse perpetrated by the few.
Regulation
He added: “This is important, and we’d ask both the media and authorities covering this to avoid their usual trick, where rather than dealing with the small number of individuals who are flouting the regulations, we get a whole new layer of regulations loaded on to the 18,000-odd dairy farmers who are already obeying all the rules around calf welfare.”
Referring to the current RTÉ controversy, McCormack added: “In the same way as it’s unfair and wrong to target everyone in a broadcaster for the errors and misjudgement of a few, it is similarly unfair and wrong to find 18,000 dairy farmers culpable for the wrongs and abuses perpetrated by a small number.”
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