A Co Mayo father and son have been sent to Castlerea Prison for contempt of court for failing to obey a High Court order to hand over 120 irregularly identified cattle for slaughter to the Department of Agriculture and Food.
At a sitting of the Circuit Court in Ballina, Judge Harvey Kenny found John Kearns, of Owenwee, Westport, and Patrick Kearns, of Midgefield, Westport, in contempt when told that the cattle were no longer at the locations listed in the Department's restrictions order.
Department officials told the court that 50 cattle had disappeared from four locations in the Westport area between June 6th and 7th last, while a further 50 cattle had disappeared earlier from two holdings in Navan, Co Meath.
The High Court, sitting in Galway, had ordered the men to hand over the 120 animals and pay €10,000 towards the cost of slaughtering them. An order had been made restricting the cattle to specific lands held by the men until the handover took place.
Department investigators had found during an investigation into suspected false identification and registration of cattle that the twinning rate for cattle on the Kearns farms was 10 times the average for Mayo.
Judge Kenny directed that the two men be detained in prison until they had purged their contempt.