ANIMALS are being slaughtered in 10 counties for the Irish market without any veterinary supervision, the annual general meeting of the Irish Veterinary Union was told in Killarney.
The outgoing president of the union, Mr Tom Hanley, told the meeting that Irish housewives should not have to accept lower standards of inspection than their EU counterparts.
All animals being killed for export from Ireland must be inspected by Department of Agriculture or private vets hired by the meat factories.
The Abattoirs Act 1988, which specified that there should be a local authority vet in each county to inspect the meat being killed there, was being flouted, he said.
The Department of Agriculture, he added, was leading something of a charmed life on the issue and there was a potential for something going wrong.
It was learned that the counties with no inspectors in local abattoirs where animals are killed for the home market are Louth, Tipperary North Riding, Kilkenny, Sligo, Leitrim, Cavan, Monaghan, Longford, Roscommon and Laois.
There is only a temporary veterinary inspection in counties Waterford and Galway.
However, the Department of Agriculture does inspect the slaughterhouses used by local butchers at least twice each year, as required by the Act.
Mr Hanley said the local authorities had refused to bear the cost of providing the service, but in recent weeks the Department of Agriculture had indicated it would take over the functions of the local authorities in the matter.
A former president of the union, Mr David McGuinness, said that the secretary of the Department, Mr Michael Dowling, accepted that the situation was "indefensible".
"He asked us to sit on it for a few months because of the BSE situation," said Mr McGuinness.
In his report, the union's general secretary, Mr Pat Brady, said it appeared to him that Irish consumers remained unaware of the apparent anomaly between the systems of meat inspection for the domestic and export markets.
It was now believed, he said, that there would be a fresh initiative by the Department in the next six months when it takes over the responsibility for a full time inspection service.
The whole area of meat inspection for home and export consumption, he said, was being dealt with in a quality assurance scheme being drawn up by the IVU and its sister organisation, the Irish Veterinary Association.