Senior vet accuses public of 'jumping on the bandwagon' after horse abuse allegations at abattoir

While Shannonside Foods had been the subject of five complaints between 2018 and 2023, none had resulted in any sanction following their investigation. Picture: Stephen Collins/Collins Photos

One of the country’s most senior vets has accused the public of “jumping on the bandwagon” amid the outrage stemming from animal abuse at Ireland’s only horse abattoir.

Michael Sheahan, deputy chief veterinarian at the Department of Agriculture, told the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) that it receives a thousand complaints a year regarding animal welfare issues and “we can’t be in 130,000 premises”.

He said that in his opinion, the exposure of horse abuses at Shannonside Foods in Straffan, Co Kildare, would not have come to light without the RTÉ Investigates probe broadcast last week.

Footage contained in the RTÉ report, taken at the now-closed abattoir, showed often distressed horses falling and being beaten with metal pipes whilst being herded within that building towards the abattoir.

There is not much that could have been done differently by his department despite the fact “people jump on the bandwagon” after any exposé, Mr Sheahan told TDs and senators at the PAC.

When called to task over his choice of words, and asked why the shed in which horses were shown to have been beaten was not inspected, Mr Sheahan said that “whenever an exposé comes out, there is a tendency to say of course you should have known”.

He said that "nothing was raising significant red flags, the animals were arriving (for slaughter) in good condition”.

The shed in question was typically only populated the day before slaughter, he said. Asked why it was not inspected on those dates at least, Mr Sheahan replied the query was “a very legitimate question”.

He said that “no one was more sickened than I was” regarding the revelations. 

While Shannonside had been the subject of five complaints between 2018 and 2023, none had resulted in any sanction following their investigation. Mr Sheahan said the fact the abattoir has now been suspended was a result of the traceability and food chain issues raised in the RTÉ broadcast, not the instances of animal cruelty seen.

Earlier, head of equine welfare with Horse Racing Ireland (HRI), John Osborne, said his organisation was reliant on horse owners acting “responsibly”. “Care on a day-to-day basis is the owner’s responsibility,” he said, adding that “a puppy is for life not just for Christmas”.

Charity fund

Separately, the head of the Irish Horseracing Regulatory Board (IHRB) told the committee that the chief financial officer for his organisation remains on fully paid voluntary leave, taking it in the wake of an issue coming to light which saw €350,000 transferred from a jockey’s charity to the board’s bank account, and then back again, in 2022.

Donal O’Shea has been on voluntary leave since June 28, 2023, the day before IHRB CEO Darragh O’Loughlin announced the “bombshell” issue of financial governance at the IHRB’s last appearance at the PAC. Mr O’Loughlin clarified that Mr O’Shea’s voluntary leave in practice means “he went on it himself, he wasn’t suspended”. 

He agreed that a year is “an exceptionally long time” to be on such leave, but would not divulge Mr O’Shea’s salary, adding that a breakdown of the IHRB’s leading salaries is published in its annual report. According to the IHRB’s annual report for 2022 published last week, four individuals, not counting Mr O’Loughlin himself, were paid a salary of between €110,000 and €130,000 that year.

Mr O’Loughlin said he did not know why the €350,000 was transferred between the Jockey’s Emergency Fund and the IHRB, adding that he is expecting that question to be answered by a probe by consultants Mazars, begun in August of last year, which is investigating six years’ worth of financials at the IHRB.

He said he doesn’t know when that report will be published. “No one wants this in the public domain more than me,” he said.