This is a subscriber-only article
The proposal by the Department to close the lab in Sligo and others is flying in the face of good animal health practice and in contravention of recent Government policies to stimulate development in rural areas, according to Marian Harkin MEP.
She was speaking after it was revealed by the Irish Farmers Journal that RVLs are subject to a major internal review headed by Professor Alan Reilly, the former chief executive of the Food Safety Authority of Ireland.
One of the recommendations from the report is to, in time, close Limerick, Sligo and Kilkenny, with an upgrading of the facilities at the other three labs.
“The Sligo laboratory also plays a significant role in helping to protect Ireland’s animal health status, which is a major positive marketing tool in promoting the country’s food products on a worldwide basis,” Marian said.
Six-hundred kilometre round-trip
“We have seen successive lip service plans to supposedly bring long overdue balanced regional development and the latest Ireland 2040 plan’s strategy is to ensure that ‘the enormous potential of the rural parts of our country are maximised’”, she said.
If the closure goes ahead, it will leave farmers having to travel a 600km round-trip from the Inishowen Peninsula to the proposed centralised facility in Athlone.
Bringing a dead animal for the examination would have significance for both the farmer concerned and for the build-up of knowledge, which is vital to protecting the country’s animal disease status, the Independent MEP said.
She questioned how this aspiration for regional development could be taken seriously in the northwest when a service vital to the region’s most important economic sector was proposed to be removed.
Saving the lab
In an effort to save the RVL, part-time suckler farmer Trevor Boland, who is from Dromard in Co Sligo, set up a petition.
He told the Irish Farmers Journal the RVL is of vital importance to farmers from Donegal to Sligo.
“If this RVL closes, the nearest one to us will be in Athlone and that will affect the speed of post-mortem tests and their results,” he said.
Anyone who wishes to sign the petition can do so here.
Petition to save RVL in Sligo gets up and running
SHARING OPTIONS: