SOME Irish live cattle exporters have been forced to sell their special £100,000 livestock trailers because they cannot get ships to carry live animals to Europe.
The claim was made yesterday to the Minister for Agriculture, Mr Yates, by the EU Live Exporters Association of Ireland which had its first meeting with him.
Mr John Fleury, chairman of the new organisation, said some of his members had spent up to £100,000 for the special livestock trailers which are required under Irish and EU regulations to carry animals.
But now, he said, they find that there are inadequate shipping facilities for them and they are running into an administrative logjam about the kind of vessels they can travel on.
"Some of our members have sold their trailers to buyers in Holland and France, and these are units which were purchased without any grant aid or support of any kind to meet the 1995 requirements," he said.
Mr Fleury said transport companies were finding grave difficulty in transporting all animals except breeding heifers and they had complained of unnecessarily high levels of bureaucracy.
They sought a centralised point for the issue of animal movement and BSE certification and for permission to travel between five and a maximum of eight hours from the boat in France to the first resting place.
The exporters also want the watering of animals to be incorporated into drivers hours and the issue of all movement certificates on the request of the exporter.