Secret RTE footage from Kerry cattle facility shows Irish calves 'beaten' before export

The special report from RTE Investigates details further 'cruel' and 'unacceptable' treatment of calves being exported abroad

Secret footage from a cattle export facility shows calves being beaten before long export journeys abroad.

The Irish Mirror first reported concerns about the treatment of calves in June 2022.

Now RTE Investigates has detailed further “cruel” and “unacceptable” treatment of the animals in a special report broadcast last night.

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Undercover footage showed calves being “repeatedly struck in the face, force-fed, jabbed with tools and dragged by the ears and tail” at an export facility in Kerry.

The programme follows RTE Investigates: Milking It, Dairy’s Dirty Secret, of July last year which exposed how EU regulations on the transport of live animals were broken and raised major questions about the treatment of animals at Irish marts.

Leading animal welfare expert Dr Simon Doherty, of Queen’s University Belfast, described what the footage shown last night as cruelty.

He added: “I think where there’s kicking and screaming and slapping and prodding with pitchforks, that is at the cruelty level.”

The footage was filmed in Hallissey Livestock Exports in Fossa, near Killarney in March.

RTE said it was recorded on cameras secretly placed and brought onto the site by animal rights campaigners.

Denis Drennan, president of the Irish Creamery Milk Suppliers Association, described the footage as “completely unacceptable”.

He said: “There’s a man there with a stick beating calves.

“It’s completely abolished and against the law, and there’s a man there with a pitchfork, trying to run calves out the gate – completely unacceptable”.

Calves are prepared for export on trucks at the facility.

Mr Drennan also said footage of two calves being force fed using stomach tubes raises concern about why they are at the facility in the first place.

He told the programme makers: “The rules and regulations say that if an animal is not fit to travel, then it shouldn’t travel.

“It’s going to damage the reputation that we have across Europe of providing top quality, fit, healthy animals.”

The report also showed how dead animals were piled into a mound and left to rot outside the Kerry facility, which Dr Doherty said raises a major disease risk and public health concerns.

Over four days, secret cameras filmed carcasses being removed from sheds, some dragged out by farm hands.

Others were lifted using a teleporter before being placed on a mound of dead and decaying animals as rain poured down on them. Dr Doherty said it appeared some of the animals have been there for weeks.

He added: “If those are still within sight, sound, smell of living animals, that’s just absolutely fundamentally wrong from a welfare perspective. There’s a huge disease risk.

Mr Drennan added: “It looks like they’re just thrown in a heap
somewhere. I just really don’t understand, it beggars belief that somebody would leave animals that length of time around their premises.”

The report reignites questions raised last year about the treatment of Irish bull calves during the live export process.

Following last year’s RTE investigation, then Taoiseach Leo Varadkar, described the cruelty exposed as “repugnant” and told the Dail the Department of Agriculture would commence a “robust and timely” investigation.

In response to queries from RTE, a solicitor for Hallissey Livestock Exports said its client’s business “provides a valuable service to the farming community and at all times takes reasonable care to ensure it does so in a manner which protects the welfare of the animals in its charge”. Pointing out that Hallissey Livestock Exports Ltd is regulated by the Department of Agriculture, the solicitors letter states, “while no system is ever perfect, it is satisfied that its business is compliant with the highest standards”.

Last night’s report also featured footage of the condition hundreds of Irish calves were left in after being exported across Romania and onwards to Israel.

RTE Investigates traced their journey and witnessed Irish calves exiting transport vehicles in Haifa Port in Northern Israel.

Israel has had increased demand for cattle imports from Romania since several countries ceased transporting live exports to it after the outbreak of the war in Gaza.

Research by RTE Investigates found thousands of calves originating from Ireland are listed as Romanian in official Israeli import figures.

RTE Investigates, Live Exports: On the Hoof, on Prime Time is available on RTE Player after broadcast last night.

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