Animal rights group protest outside Dept of Agriculture

Animal rights campaigners have mounted a protest outside the Department of Agriculture in Dublin today.

The Compassion in World Farming demonstration is part of a campaign to get the EU to introduce an eight-hour limit on journey times for the transport of live animals. This would effectively end live exports out of Ireland.

Today’s protest is designed to put pressure on Agriculture Minister Joe Walsh ahead of a meeting of the EU’s agriculture council in Brussels next week.

Speaking during the protest, CIWF director Mary-Anne Bartlett said: "This trade is inhumane and it is unnecessary. What we’re looking for is slaughter of animals near the farm of rearing and then any long-distance transport can be done in the form of meat."

Green Party spokesman Dan Boyle, meanwhile, said the trade in live animals was also economically damaging. "The minister needs to be encouraged to wean both the department and the farmers off the reliance on live animal exports," he said. “

"Not only are there animal welfare issues involved, but it doesn’t make any economic sense. The whole problem with live exports is that we’re exporting a lot of wealth out of the country and we’re doing it in a way that compromises the welfare of the animals themselves."