Watch: Minister Healy-Rae doubles down on live exports
Minister of State at the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine (DAFM) Michael Healy-Rae has said that Ireland will always need live exports.
The minister made the comments while attending the Agri Aware Farm Walk and Talk series at at Salesian Agricultural College, in Pallaskenry, Co. Limerick today (Friday, February 28).
He told the secondary school students present that protecting live exports was among the issues that he is personally "very fundamental" about.
"Whatever you'll listen to and whatever type of things you will hear going on, always remember when you're living on an island, you have to export. The best way to export is exporting live," he said.
Speaking with Agriland, Minister Healy-Rae said: "I will not mince my words on this. We're an island nation. I really believe in our live exports, it's so important to have as much outlet and sales as we can have around the world".
He added that he has "every confidence" in Irish shippers, purchasers and hauliers.
"People might say to me 'we've seen different things and they were very negative'. Yes, of course we have isolated incidents, but the majority of our people, they're highly respectable.
"Even where incidents were shown, if they were analysed and if they were really looked at very closely, you can exaggerate things with mobile phones. You make something that is not bad and you can actually make it look bad.
"I'm always fearful of that, but 99.9% of the people that are involved in agriculture whether it's production, whether it's haulage, whether it's export, the one thing in common is the minding of that animal, because at the end of the day that animal is our livelihood," he said.
Minister Healy-Rae acknowledged that there will always be people against live exports.
"We have people that think we shouldn't be producing anything, but the last time I checked the population of the world will have to eat.
"We need dairy produce, we need beef, we need sheep, we need pigmeat, we need to eat food and food has to be produced and it has to be exported and it has to be taken around the world," he said.
According to Bord Bia, the value of live exports of animals from Ireland stood at €340 million during 2024, an increase of almost 30% from 2023 levels
The Bord Bia Export Performance and Prospects Report 2024-2025 shows that live cattle exports accounted for 75% of the total value.
Bord Bia noted that the live trade of animals “remains under intense scrutiny at both a local and European level”.
“Proposed changes to EU transport legislation around journey times, feeding intervals, age at transport and space allowances will negatively impact the longer-term future of the unweaned calf trade in particular,” the report stated.
