RTÉ Investigates details cruel treatment of Irish calves in special report

In a special report on Prime Time, RTÉ Investigates broadcast new undercover footage of Irish bull calves being cruelly treated, including recordings at a major cattle export facility in Kerry revealing calves being repeatedly struck in the face, force-fed, jabbed with tools and dragged by the ears and tail.

RTÉ has continued to investigate the treatment of Irish calves in the wake of Europe-wide interest in its major report published and broadcast in July 2023, RTÉ Investigates: Milking It, Dairy’s Dirty Secret. It exposed how EU regulations on the transport of live animals were being broken as Irish bull calves were transported by truck to mainland Europe. 

The programme also raised major questions about the treatment of animals at marts in Ireland.

Leading animal welfare expert Dr Simon Doherty of Queens University Belfast described what he saw in the footage as cruelty.

“I think where there's kicking and screaming and slapping and prodding with pitchforks, that is at the cruelty level.” 

The footage was filmed in Hallissey Livestock Exports in Fossa, near Killarney in March this year. It was recorded on cameras secretly placed and brought onto the site by animal rights campaigners, and provided to RTÉ Investigates.

Denis Drennan, President of the Irish Creamery Milk Suppliers Association (ICMSA), said what he saw in the new footage was “completely unacceptable.” 

Calves are prepared for export on trucks at the facility. Mr Drennan said footage of two calves being force-fed using stomach tubes raises concern about why they are at the facility in the first place. 

“The rules and regulations say that if an animal is not fit to travel, it shouldn’t travel. It’s going to damage the reputation that we have across Europe of providing top quality, fit, healthy animals,” he told RTÉ Investigates.

The report also showed how dead animals were piled into a mound and left to rot outside the facility, which raises major disease-risk concerns, according to Dr Doherty.

Cameras captured over four days several dead calves being removed from sheds. They were placed on a mound of dead and decaying calf carcasses lying in the open air.

The report reignites questions raised by RTÉ Investigates last year about the treatment of Irish bull calves here during the live export process. In response to queries from RTÉ a solicitor for Hallissey Livestock Exports said that their client’s business “provides a valuable service to the farming community and at all times takes reasonable care to ensure it does so in a manner which protects the welfare of the animals in its charge.” 

Pointing out that Hallissey Livestock Exports Limited is regulated by the Department of Agriculture, the solicitor’s letter stated, “while no system is ever perfect, it is satisfied that its business is compliant with the highest standards.” 

RTÉ Investigates, Live Exports: On the Hoof, was broadcast on Prime Time on Tuesday, October 8.