The Green MEP, Ms Patricia McKenna, has joined in the call on OLAF, the EU's anti-fraud office, to conduct an inquiry into the use of export refunds on live cattle, including Irish animals, to the Middle East.
Official European data showed that 90 per cent of all live cattle shipped out of the EU during 2002 went to Lebanon at a cost of €50 million to the EU taxpayer.
Some 226,000 live cattle were sent to the Lebanon in 2002 from France, Germany and Ireland which sent almost 30,000 cattle there.
But Austrian socialist MEP, Mr Herbert Bosch, alleged there were "obvious irregularities" in the case of exports there as he doubted Lebanon was actually the final destination of the animals.
Calling for an OLAF investigation into the trade, he claimed that Lebanon did not have the capacity to slaughter and process or eat the number of animals involved. He was supported by Mr Jan Mulder, a Dutch Liberal MEP, who said in the past cattle officially exported to Jordan had gone to Iraq despite the economic embargo during the Saddam Hussein era.
Ms McKenna said last night she would be supporting the move in the European Parliament at the end of this month to have the trade with Lebanon investigated by the anti-fraud agency.
"The figures show an enormous increase in live exports into a very small country. Lebanon does not have the capacity to slaughter this number of cattle," said Ms McKenna
"The belief is that Lebanon acts as a crossroads or a clearing house. The subsidies are claimed for the cattle being exported there. The cattle are then sold onwards to other countries. There is nothing to prevent this happening as there is no end user certification required," she said.
"Many MEPs are in favour of scrapping all export refund subsidies. Not just on animal welfare grounds but on the grounds that export refund subsidies are one of the EU policies most vulnerable to fraud," said Ms McKenna.
"At the end of the day we want to see an end to live exports. Eventually they will be phased out, farmers and exporters need to start preparing for that reality now," said Ms McKenna.
The Irish section of Compassion in World Farming (CIWF) said it fully supported the call for an investigation into the trade and for an end to the export subsidy, worth €200 per animal, being paid by the EU.
Ms Mary-Ann Bartlett, director of the group, said taxpayers' money should not be used to fund the live trade which is fraught with animal welfare problems. She said there was no way of protecting the welfare of cattle once they left the EU and CIWF had already produced evidence of brutal treatment of cattle in Lebanon.