MEPs to visit farm where cattle and trees are mysteriously wasting

MEMBERS of the European Parliament are to visit a farm in Kilkenny where cattle are getting mysterious illnesses and trees are dying.

Farmer Dan Brennan said he feared the Irish authorities were attempting to cover up what had been happening on his 67 hectare holding for at least the last 19 years and he feared for the health of his children.

Despite several investigations by the Department of Agriculture and the Environmental Protection Agency he had never been told what was causing the problem, he told the European Parliament’s Petitions Committee in Brussels yesterday.

Cattle on the Castlecomer farm show less than half the growth of animals in the rest of the country and their milk yield is between 30% and 50% of the national average. Calves that are born healthy suddenly fail.

The Department of Agriculture and Teagasc tried an experiment where they moved his cattle to another farm and brought in Teagasc animals. His cattle thrived and the department’s lost weight.

The department officials observed that a vapour came from local industry and lingered over his fields. Four chemical compounds were found in a stream on his farm, including high levels of hydrogen chloride. But despite this the department had not looked for a cause outside the farm.

“All this has put huge stress on us. We have four children and my wife works full-time. And because the trees are dying and the cattle are not growing we worry it will affect our health and our children,” he said.

The finger of suspicion is being pointed at Roadstone’s Ormond brick plant just a few hundred metres away from where he keeps 200 dairy and beef cattle. It shut down suddenly around Christmas.

Vet Tom Slevin told the hearing: “I believe we have an air pollution problem of huge proportions. We have found it very difficult to have it monitored to any significant degree.”

Mr Slevin and fellow vet Michael Lamb gave evidence of a litany of failures by the Agriculture Department, the farm advisory body Teagasc and the EPA over the years.

Mr Lamb said the EPA had even claimed they were unable to validate emissions data from local industry. “They were a hindrance,” he told the committee.

He asked that a committee be set up to investigate the whole debacle.

The brick plant comes under the EU’s environmental directives and its operating permit should be based on the factory using the best available technology, the commission said.

The committee agreed to visit the farm on a fact-finding mission and to send a message to the authorities.

A statement from Ormond Brick said they operated to the highest environmental standards under the terms of their pollution control licence issued by the EPA.

“Extensive EPA and Department of Agriculture investigations have been carried out on the lands in questions and have shown no link between the plant and the problems currently experienced on the Brennan farm,” it said.