PRESS RELEASE FROM COMPASSION IN WORLD FARMING - IRELAND

23 December 2005

Animal welfare campaigners celebrate end of subsidies for live cattle exports to the Middle East

Today, the European Union (EU) agreed to immediately end subsidies for all EU exports of live cattle to countries outside the EU.  The subsidies will stop as of midnight tonight on the 23^rd December.  This means that live cattle shipped from Ireland to the Lebanon will no longer be supported by EU subsidies.

The trade in EU cattle exported to the Middle East for slaughter has been repeatedly exposed for its immense cruelty by investigators from the world’s leading international farm animal welfare organisation, Compassion in World Farming (CIWF).

The EU Commissioner for Agriculture and Rural Development, Mariann Fischer Boel, made it clear that animal welfare considerations played a major role in the decision to recommend an end to the subsidies.

Mary-Anne Bartlett, Director of CIWF in Ireland, said today:  "We know that shipping live cattle to the Lebanon for slaughter subjects animals to a long and stressful journey only to face cruel slaughter when they get to their destination.  It is appalling that for many years, taxpayers had to support this inhumane trade.  The ending of the EU subsidies that supported this trade is a real victory for animal welfare.  Compassion in World Farming is celebrating this commendable EU decision.”

Background:

On several occasions, CIWF has produced video footage showing EU and Irish cattle being subjected to brutal handling and cruel slaughter in the Lebanon.  The most recent video exposé was an undercover investigation of cattle going from Waterford to the Lebanon, filmed in 2004.  This showed that after EU cattle were unloaded in Beirut, they were transported in overcrowded sub-standard trucks before being subjected to appalling slaughter conditions.  Heavy cattle were hung by one back leg on a slaughterline and had their throats cut whilst fully conscious.

Statistics:

In 2004, 11,690 live cattle were exported from Ireland to the Lebanon.  To date in 2005, 9,874 live cattle were exported from Ireland to the Lebanon.  The export refund was paid according to the weight of each animal and amounted to about 165 Euro per head of cattle.

For further information

Please contact Mary-Anne Bartlett at 021 4272441 (office)