IFA Animal Health Chair David Hall said IFA is seeking an urgent meeting with the Department of Agriculture Chief Veterinary Officer about DAFM protocols to deal with alleged welfare and animal traceability breaches on farms.
The Department of Agriculture confirmed to Northern Sound that it had carried out an enforcement operation at a county Roscommon farm with support and assistance from local Gardai at the weekend.
The operation took place as a result of animal welfare concerns involving a large number of cattle being destroyed on the farm.
IFA Animal Health Chair David Hall is from Newbliss in Co Monaghan.
He was speaking on today's Joe Finnegan Show in relation to an unverified video recording in circulation which purports to show two recent operations being carried out remotely by the Department of Agriculture.
Mr Hall said these unverified videos are very distressing and shows animals being euthanised.
He said what the IFA has seen in these videos is very poor practice and there is now concern about how these operations are carried out.
The local IFA rep said in his opinion, animals that are fit to travel should be brought to a proper licensed abattoir where they have the proper facilities to do it humanly and efficiently and if the meat is unfit for the food chain for whatever reason they have the proper disposable facilities.
However, on a farm with make shift facilities, it's dangerous to the people who are doing it, it's in-humane to the animals and anyone seeing such videos could not help but be distressed.
Mr Hall is hopeful that his request will be granted and he will ask the Chief Veterinary Officer what the current protocol for these situations are and how these protocols could be modified to deal with things in a much more humane manner that what we have seen in circulating videos.
He told today's Joe Finnegan Show: "Unfortunately because of these videos and what people are seeing of how situations are being dealt with, people may be reluctant to report cases in the sense that they may feel that the animals are being badly treated by a farmer but they could be treated even worse by officials and that's a scary situation in a country that prides itself on animal welfare and producing the best meat, poultry and dairy products in the world.
"The idea that officials may not be dealing in a humane way with welfare issues is very concerning to us.
"The videos we have seen online apparently showing how animals were euthanised on two farms last Friday, under Department of Agriculture supervision, are unacceptable and shocking.
"Whatever about the rights and wrongs of the particular case against the herd owner, which is a matter for the courts, there must be a better way of dealing with issues than we saw last Friday.
"There may be times where animals have to be euthanised, but there must be strict protocols around this."
