{"id":627510,"date":"2026-08-08T19:02:13","date_gmt":"2026-08-08T19:02:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/627510\/"},"modified":"2026-08-08T19:02:13","modified_gmt":"2026-08-08T19:02:13","slug":"union-calls-for-review-after-51-cows-euthanised-in-co-tyrone-in-view-of-members-of-public-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/627510\/","title":{"rendered":"Union calls for review after 51 cows euthanised in Co Tyrone in view of members of public \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

A call has been made for an independent expert panel to review the culling of cows in Co Tyrone<\/a> which has sparked criticism.<\/p>\n

Criticisms have been made after the livestock were euthanised by Northern Ireland<\/a>\u2019s Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs (Daera) staff in a field in the view of some members of the public near Fivemiletown in June.<\/p>\n

The Ulster Farmers\u2019 Union (UFU) said that confidence in the department\u2019s veterinary and enforcement processes has been \u201cseverely damaged\u201d.<\/p>\n

Stormont<\/a> Minister of Agriculture Andrew Muir said the situation arose following a court order which required his officials to act after a man was convicted of a number of offences and disqualified for life from keeping animals.<\/p>\n

Muir said the department gave the herd keeper three weeks to sell off or dispose of his animals, but he \u201conly divested himself of a small number of animals\u201d.<\/p>\n

He said this left 51 cows on the land which had to be removed from the disqualified keeper.<\/p>\n

Muir said: \u201cThe department was unfortunately left with no reasonable alternative to comply with the court order, other than to euthanise the animals.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhile it is generally preferable for the animals to be removed from the premises and euthanised remotely, in certain circumstances, such as this case, it was the assessment of professional veterinary staff that this option was simply not possible.\u201d<\/p>\n

Muir is due to appear at the Daera scrutiny committee at Stormont on Monday about the incident.<\/p>\n

UFU president John McLenaghan said the events that unfolded \u201chave shaken confidence in Daera to its core\u201d and urged that a review is carried out by an independent panel of experts.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have heard from members in every county and from every farming sector,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey are asking how this could happen, the chain of events that led to the incident, whether it could have been prevented and, most importantly, how confidence can be restored.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe farming community will not regain confidence if the department is perceived to be investigating itself.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis review must be demonstrably independent, transparent and robust. It must command the confidence of farmers and the wider public alike.\u201d<\/p>\n

The UFU has also asked anyone with information about what happened to bring it forward through appropriate channels to assist scrutiny of the events.<\/p>\n

It said it is continuing discussions with political representatives from across the Assembly \u201cto ensure members of the committee fully appreciate the scale of concern that exists throughout the farming community and the importance of securing meaningful answers from Daera officials\u201d.<\/p>\n

McLenaghan added: \u201cMonday cannot become a box-ticking exercise. It must be a genuine examination of what happened, why it happened and what must now be actioned. Farmers expect searching questions, complete transparency and honest answers.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur role as the Ulster Farmers\u2019 Union is to represent our members. We will continue pressing for answers, pushing for meaningful change and ensuring that the voices of farming families are heard at every stage of this process.\u201d \u2013 PA<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A call has been made for an independent expert panel to review the culling of cows in Co…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":627511,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[41],"tags":[9,10,13,14,6,11,12,15,16,5,954,51349,7,8,32,65,66,67],"class_list":["post-627510","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-world","tag-breaking-news","tag-breakingnews","tag-featured-news","tag-featurednews","tag-headlines","tag-latest-news","tag-latestnews","tag-main-news","tag-mainnews","tag-news","tag-northern-ireland","tag-stormont-assembly","tag-top-stories","tag-topstories","tag-tyrone","tag-world","tag-world-news","tag-worldnews"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/117061441659447568","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/627510","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=627510"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/627510\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/627511"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=627510"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=627510"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=627510"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}