Compassion in World Farming (CIWF) is to step up its campaign against the export of live cattle, which is running at a 10year high this year, with an estimated 500,000 animals due to be shipped abroad.
Ms Mary Ann Bartlett of the campaign group in Ireland accused Ireland and the EU of failing to implement the regulations on the movement of animals within member-states and to other countries.
"Our belief is that animals are still being lost at sea and elsewhere, and nothing is being done about it. The regulations are being systematically flouted," she claimed.
An attempt to get figures on the number of deaths of animals in transport from the Department of Agriculture had proved fruitless, she said.
"It would appear that very few statistics or records are kept at all." Ms Bartlett said a recent EU report on cattle movement in France had cited problems in shipments of animals from "another member-state". She said the problems found by the EU included the lack of a 24-hour rest period which animals were entitled to after travelling for 28 hours.
Ms Bartlett warned that many European countries were increasingly worried about the transport of animals and there was growing political pressure to ban the live trade.
She said farmers attending the ploughing championship, where CIWF had a stand, were telling her they would prefer to see their animals slaughtered as close as possible to their farms. However, they told her the live trade was necessary to ensure competition with the factories to keep prices high.
While there was an economic factor, CIWF would continue to press for an end of the trade to stop animal suffering.
Mr Derek Deane, chairman of the IFA's National Livestock Committee, said the live trade was the cornerstone of the beef trade in Ireland. The Irish live trade was a model in terms of welfare controls which other European countries were attempting to imitate, he said.