Report calls for regulation of horse fairs on foot of animal welfare worries

PROPOSALS TO regulate some of Ireland’s best known horse fairs should be given serious consideration, a new report has said.

Fairs like Smithfield, Ballinasloe, Spancil Hill and Tallow, Co Waterford, are not currently licensed and are lightly monitored, according to the author of a UCD review of horse welfare in Ireland 2007-2009 project.

The initial findings were presented yesterday at UCD, while the full report will be published in two years’ time.

Report author Joe Collins, of UCD’s veterinary department, said “grave concerns” had been raised about the welfare of horses at fairs and the lack of regulation.

“Our group would like to be very balanced about this. These type of fairs are social events which have a great value in themselves,” he said. “However, it is important in that context that the animals involved are treated reasonably and appropriately, and that is not always the case.

“There are occasional instances of cruelty at markets. You can see horses at Smithfield market being exercised up and down the cobbled streets with one shoe on and one shoe off.”

He said the Department of Agriculture was beginning a campaign to monitor horse fairs, checking for identification as the law requires and the Garda also had a role in monitoring such fairs.

“It is by law a requirement that if you buy, transport or sell a horse on the public road, the animal must be accompanied by an identification document. That is a message that has not sufficiently being gotten out to the horse-owning community, and it has not been heavily policed, but that process is beginning.” He said there were issues relating to the huge production of horses in Ireland.

“There is increasingly concern about this currently because we are facing more tightened economic times and we would recognise that horses are a luxury item. Horses are expensive animals to keep. We feel this is an area that warrants further investigation.”