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Minister for Agriculture Michael Creed said the shooting of five cattle by the army was a “last resort” and “in the interests of public safety.”
Speaking in the Dáil on Wednesday about the incident which happened in Carrickmacross, Co Monaghan, Michael Creed said, “the Department is not in the business of shooting cattle.”
The army was called to shoot the animals after the debt collection service had struggled to load the five animals on to a truck.
Feral
The Minister described the animals as feral and that “significant efforts had been made to contain the animals, but these proved futile.”
However, Independent TD Thomas Pringle responded that he found it "difficult to believe, and many people found it shocking, that these cattle could have gone feral in the first instance and that expertise was not available, in particular to the Department of Agriculture, to gather up the cattle and have them removed from the farm without their needing to be shot by the Defence Forces."
It was a no-win situation
Michael Creed also added that, while the cattle did not have TB, their herd was "TB restricted on 18 February due to the disclosure of TB lesions in cattle slaughtered from the herd."
"It is the view of my Department that the actions taken were the most humane in the circumstances and I am advised that there was no alternative action available to the official assignee in the circumstances, taking account of the fact that the interest of public safety was the primary consideration at all times.
"I appreciate that the outcome was a sight that no one wanted to behold, but what if the cattle had caused a serious, even fatal, accident on the public road? My Department would have equally been in the dock. It was a no-win situation but, in the assignee invoking the protocol and the participation of the Garda, my Department’s veterinary service and the Defence Forces, there are sufficient checks and balances to ensure that this is not something that is done lightly," he said.
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