A PROMISE to help the agriculture authorities North and South develop an all-island animal health and welfare strategy to facilitate trade on and off the island, was given by the EU commissioner for health and consumer policy, John Dalli, in Cavan yesterday.
On his first official visit to Ireland, the commissioner said the EU was about removing borders, not putting them in place, and he welcomed the co-operation between North and South on the policy, which was agreed at the last North/South ministerial meeting.
The commissioner told the all-island animal health and welfare conference in the Slieve Russell hotel that the EU’s fully harmonised legal framework on animal health was ensuring a single European market for live animals and animal products.
“Both Ireland and Northern Ireland have drawn great benefit from this, as evidenced by the high trade flow in animals and their products to other EU member states,” said the commissioner.
He added he was bringing forward new EU animal health law that would shift the emphasis away from a position of financing losses of disease outbreaks to one of financing prevention, as was also happening in human health.
The cross-Border strategy of enhanced co-operation between the Republic and Northern Ireland was an initiative very much in line with commission thinking, he said.
The extent of the trade in animals between North and South was outlined to the conference by the Northern Minister for Agriculture, Michelle Gildernew, who said in 2009, 36,600 cattle were brought North for direct slaughter, while 7,000 moved South. Some 46,700 cattle came North for breeding and production, while 4,000 went South in the same year.
There were also significant sheep movements: last year about 41,000 sheep were brought from the South to the North for direct slaughter, while some 252,000 went in the opposite direction. In addition, 22,000 sheep were sent from the North to the South for breeding and production.
Exporters, she said, felt frustrated by the high volume of paperwork needed to move animals within the island and wanted to trade freely on the island.
“Why should there be any difference in moving animals from Ballymena to Ballybofey or from Coleraine to Cork? In fact it takes the same amount of paperwork to export an animal from Coleraine to Italy as it does to move it to Cork,” she said.
Minister for Agriculture Brendan Smith, said the ultimate objective of the all-island animal health and welfare strategy was to have policies and arrangement in place that facilitated the free movement of animals on the island.
In framing the strategy both sides worked together to identify where co-operation could be effective, especially in testing for diseases like bovine TB and brucellosis, where statistical and other information was shared.
“The co-operation achieved between both administrations in response to the evolving disease-risk situation has been a great success and both departments are committed to ensuring the island of Ireland remains disease-free.”
He said a common early-warning protocol for major incidents outside the three main diseases – foot-and-mouth, avian influenza and bluetongue – had been agreed.