COMPASSION in World Farming has initiated a petition calling for the withdrawal of EU grants funding the live trade in cattle to Egypt, which is set to resume soon.
CIWF, the State's foremost animal welfare group, said yesterday it is proceeding with the petition following a meeting with senior officials from the office of the EU Agriculture Commissioner, Mr Franz Fischler.
The organisation had asked the EU to withdraw the export refund grants on Irish cattle exported there and instead to encourage a trade in meat and carcasses.
A CIWF statement said it had put forward the view that the trade in live cattle shipped to countries outside the EU was fraught with serious welfare problems and it was therefore wrong to fund the trade with taxpayers' money.
Ms Mary Anne Bartlett, the Irish director of CIWF, said that for every head of cattle exported live from Ireland to a non-EU country, a grant of around £250 was paid to the exporter.
These grants, she said, were paid out of EU taxpayers' money. Without the subsidy it was unlikely that the trade would be economically viable.
"It is scandalous that taxpayers' money is being used to fund a trade fraught with animal welfare problems. Once this scandal is more widely known, we believe that many taxpayers will object to their money being used in this way," she added.
"Shipping live cattle out to the Middle East and North Africa for slaughter is out of line with modern-day thinking on animal welfare. Cattle boats should be consigned to the history books where they belong. To prop this trade up with taxpayers' money is a gross misuse of people's taxes."
Egypt lifted a ban on the import of live cattle from Ireland last week, and the trade is set to resume shortly.