Minister for Agriculture Michael Creed has published a number of “live export facts” following criticism of efforts made by him and his Department to facilitate the live export of dairy calves.

Positing on his Twitter page, Minister Creed said since becoming minister live exports had significantly increased. He pointed to the fact that 2018 figures showed a 30% increase in live exports on 2017, which in turn were up 30% on 2016.

The minister also highlighted a reduction of veterinary inspection fees on calf exports from €4.80 to €1.20 in 2017.

There has been a 64% increase in the number of calves exported between 2017 and 2018

He said that this move had benefitting exporters by €572,400 in 2018 alone.

There has been a 64% increase in the number of calves exported between 2017 and 2018. The number of calves exported rose from 102,000 to 159,000.

For 2019 to date, Minister Creed said live export figures were running 25% ahead of last year.

Criticism

Minister Creed has faced criticism from both exporters and farm lobby groups over a calf export bottleneck.

Department officials were hopeful that the Irish Ferries’ WB Yeats, would run on alternate days with Stena Line’s Horizon, to allow access to French lairages on separate days of the week.

However, this hope has now been dashed and now there will be a 48,000 calf capacity limit per month in the lairages.

If the ferries were to run on separate days, there would have been room for 80,000 calves.

Turkey

The minister is travelling to Turkey this week to discuss a resumption of the export of Irish weanlings.

In January, Turkey temporarily banned the importation of live animals.

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