Secret Footage Shows Calves Beaten Before Export

Irish TV broadcaster RTÉ Investigates has aired undercover footage of Irish bull calves being repeatedly struck in the face, force-fed, jabbed with tools and dragged by the ears and tail. The report follows a report by RTÉ Investigates aired last year on the treatment of Irish bull calves during the live export process.

RTÉ has continued to investigate the treatment of Irish calves in the wake of Europe-wide interest in its first report published and broadcast in July 2023, RTÉ Investigates: Milking It, Dairy’s Dirty Secret. This report 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 program also raised major questions about the treatment of animals at marts in Ireland.

Animal welfare expert Dr Simon Doherty of Queens University Belfast described what he saw in the new 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 is “completely unacceptable.”  Watching the footage, Drennan said “there’s a man there with a stick beating calves. It’s completely abolished and against the law, and there’s a man there with a pitchfork, trying to run calves out the gate – completely unacceptable.”

Calves are prepared for export on trucks at the facility. Drennan says 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.

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 states, “while no system is ever perfect, it is satisfied that its business is compliant with the highest standards.”

(Calves are typically exported from Ireland by ferry, and Ethical Farming Ireland has reported that in 2023 over 183,000 calves under six weeks of age were exported from Ireland to mainland Europe.)

The new report: RTÉ Investigates, Live Exports: On the Hoof, was aired on October 8. It was presented by RTÉ Prime Time presenter and former Agricultural Correspondent Fran McNulty and producer/director Frank Shouldice.