MINISTER for Agriculture Brendan Smith was criticised yesterday for failing to provide for the growing number of abandoned horses, despite pleas from the Irish Horse Welfare Trust.
The trust, which voluntarily took 41 of 60 horses the Department of Agriculture had scheduled for slaughter when it seized them from a Kilkenny farm in December, is now seeking homes for these animals.
“We have had two meetings with Minister Smith seeking a co-ordinated approach to the ongoing equine crisis, but these were a waste of time,” said Sharon Newsome of the trust yesterday.
“The Minister has done nothing while horses are dying in fields and on roadsides all over the country and he is failing to act. There are abandoned horses all over the country on farms, on roads and in forests, and we and other voluntary organisations do not have the resources to deal with this,” she said.
“We cannot cope with the amount of calls we are getting, and the SPCAs now tell us the majority of calls they are getting deal with horses.
“All we sought from the Minister was that he co-ordinate a national approach to a national welfare problem and nothing has happened.”
She said the local authorities dealt with animals on public land and the SPCAs dealt with problems where they arose, but the scale of the crisis was putting an inordinate strain on organisations.
“The department. . .has a major responsibility here, and it has vets in every county in the country. They are resourced but seem to think there is not a problem.”
She said the rescue of the 41 horses from the farm in December put a big strain on the charity, which is based at Woodenbridge, Co Wicklow.
She said the trust “appealed to the Department of Agriculture to save the horses, which resulted in the charity’s staff and volunteers collecting the horses and transporting them into care”.
She said the Woodenbridge facility had the capacity to deal with 60 horses, but now had 90, and it was urgently seeking good homes for the rescued horses.
“These are good quality, well-bred sport horses” and she said there should be no difficulty finding homes for them. “There is a great urgency in doing so because the problem of abandoned horses, because of the recession, continues to grow.”
Anyone interested in rehoming the horses should contact IHWT on (0404) 45720 or (0404) 30773 or visit www.ihwt.ie