Fivemiletown report highlights 'a shambles from start to finish and a damning indictment of Daera' - UUP's Armstrong
The Blake review into the Fivemiletown cattle cull has exposed “a catalogue of contradictions and communication failures" within Stormont’s agriculture department, a UUP MLA has said.
Diana Armstrong has said the report by Dr Martin Blake is “a serious piece of work” which shows that the handling of the slaughter was “a shambles from start to finish” and a damning indictment of how Daera operates.
“The whole case for culling those animals in the fields rests on them being too wild to gather. Yet on the very morning of the operation, fifteen of them were standing in a shed waiting on paperwork. The keeper had gathered them weeks before for TB testing. Buyers had walked among them without causing alarm.
“Animals were moved off that farm on the day itself. Dr Blake sets every bit of that out in his report and still concludes they could not be gathered. Nobody has answered that, and it is the question the whole thing turns on.
“Three animals were shot at Site 1 after the order to stop had already been given, and Dr Blake could not establish why. Site 2 was declared clear at lunchtime and, in his words, no search was carried out on Site 2. Sites 1 and 3 were searched extensively over two days. Site 2 was not searched once. Five days later a calf was found on a public road with a wound he describes as reflective of a gunshot, and he concludes it most likely came from Site 2.
“With a bull loose on a public road and firearms in use, staff rang the PSNI at quarter past seven and again at half past and got no answer. Dr Blake points out that neither agreement between Daera and the police even allows for that possibility.
“But here is the bit that will stay with people. Two neighbours, distressed at what they were watching, tried to move the cow and calves onto their own ground because they wanted to buy them and save them. That was refused. The animals were driven back into the field and two of them were shot.
“I visited a neighbouring farm last night. Three animals from that herd are alive there today, including the wounded calf, and nobody from the review ever contacted those people”, the Fermanagh South Tyrone MLA said.