A CO Galway farmer has been fined €5,000 and given a suspended 18-month sentence for cruelty and neglect of animals on his farm.
PJ Shiel (42), from Loughile, Craughwell, Co Galway, was successful yesterday in his appeal to the Circuit Court against the severity of fines totalling €35,000 along with two three-month prison sentences that were imposed on him at Athenry District Court earlier this year.
Shiel had pleaded guilty to 35 offences relating to animal cruelty and the failure to bury carcasses at his farm in Craughwell and at rented lands near Clarinbridge in March and April of 2010, when the case first came before Judge Joseph Mangan at Athenry District Court earlier this year.
At the appeal hearing before Judge Tony Hunt in the Circuit Court in Galway yesterday, Department of Agriculture veterinary inspector Michael Haugh said he inspected the farm in Craughwell in March of last year and found animals confined to sheds with no access to food or water. One pen contained 10 cattle standing one-foot deep in their own manure. One had died and the other animals were walking on the carcass.
Another shed contained 13 cattle in a pen. A number of animals had died on land at the back of the shed and their carcasses were at various stages of decay.
Viewing photographs of the animals’ suffering, Judge Hunt said this was neglect “at the top end of the scale” and the suffering of the animals “unimaginable”.
However, hearing Shiel was now working with his local vet, Vincent Costello, and with department officials in taking steps to improve animal welfare on his farm, no purpose would be served, the judge said, by jailing him.
He cut the fines from €35,000 to €5,000 but increased the prison sentence from six to 18 months, to reflect “the very considerable wrongdoing”. He then suspended the sentence on conditions including that Shiel retain Mr Costello at his own expense to inspect the animals on a monthly basis for two years and that Shiel make himself and his lands available to department inspectors.