Farmer fined over ‘toxic’ yard

A County Galway farmyard where animals had been ill-treated was last week described as “an environmental, health and safety catastrophe for both humans and animals.”

“The yard is so toxic that anyone who does work there has to dispose of all of their clothes,” Superintendent veterinary inspector Michael O’Brien told a sitting of Loughrea District Court during the hearing of a case where the farmer admitted  three charges of ill-treating lambs and permitting a carcass to remain unburied.

Before the court was 46 year old farmer PJ Shiel of Reaskmore, Craughwell,  who was stated to have over 60 previous convictions and was accused by the veterinary inspector of making no effort whatsoever to improve conditions on his 160 acre farm over the past three years.

Mr O’Brien told the court there were on-going problems on the farm where there was actually no gates or fencing, except for what was erected by neighbouring farmers, and animals grazed and then came out onto the road.

He recalled a visit he paid to the farm on November 15 2013 when he found two lambs in a trailer which were “skin and bone” because they had not been fed for some considerable time and there was no feed or water.

He also discovered an unburied four or five month old weanling in a shed which he estimated had been dead for five or six weeks and whose hoofs had come away.

He described a field strewn with all kinds of machinery and a lot of barbed wire in loops which animals could walk through. Only three animals had been sold from this farm, and 22 animals had gone to the knackers’ yard. He could only guess that these animals had died on the farm.

Mr O’Brien went on to tell Judge Geoffrey Browne of serious difficulties they had with getting Mr Shiel to get tests done on his animals or register calves.

There was in breeding on the farm and he was not co-operating with a campaign to eradicate a very nasty disease known as BVD.

This campaign was paid for by farmers but it involved animals being tagged and tested and required “one hundred per cent buy-in” by the farmers.

Witness told Judge Browne that he would guess there were about seventy bovines on the farm and about the same number of sheep.

Inspector Mick O’Dwyer told the court that there were over sixty previous convictions against the accused including convictions for cruelty to animals, leaving carcases unburied, and offences in regard to TB notices.

In reply to Gearoid Geraghty, solicitor for the accused, Mr O’Brien said he had visited the farm a few days prior to the court case and found the animals in good shape. His concern was for the health of his own officials and anyone else who would be doing work on the farm.

He said that Mr Shiel was in receipt of a single farm payment and if he got out of livestock completely, and let the farm, he would still get the single payment and would have more money.

Vincent Costello, an agricultural consultant,  gave evidence of monitoring the farm over the last two years during which time the big issue concerned the welfare of animals, and  how the feeding of cattle was now not a problem.

He did agree with Mr. O’Brien about the farm yard and said that he would be prepared to oversee the rectifying of structural difficulties and a clean-up, if Mr Shiel co-operated.

Mr. Geraghty told the court that his client lived alone with his 81 year old mother who was in court with him. The defendant had significant health problems and had spent eighteen days in Portiuncula hospital following a stroke.

He agreed that it was a very difficult case but said his client “had come to his senses” and he asked that the matter be adjourned for six months.

Judge Browne said the situation on the farm was “an absolute disgrace” and the defendant had done nothing about it, despite convictions in the Circuit Court in 2011.

He imposed a fine of €750 on one of the cruelty charges and made an order prohibiting the accused from keeping no more than five animals at any given time, but only on condition that all necessary veterinary procedures were carried out on the animals.

He also imposed a fine of €500 for permitting the carcase of a livestock to remain unburied in an open shed.