DUP says Fivemiletown cattle cull report 'confirms what people knew' - and Daera got it badly wrong
The independent review into the Fivemiletown cattle cull has confirmed what the local community has known since June - that Stormont’s agriculture department (Daera) got it “badly wrong”, a local DUP MLA has said.
Deborah Erskine, who represents the Fermanagh and South Tyrone area, was responding to the publication of a report into the planning, governance and delivery of the operation back in June.
51 cattle were culled by Daera vets after a disposal order was issued by a court in relation to the animals, whose keeper had been convicted of animal welfare breaches.
The DUP MLA said: “I have been raising this case with the Minister since the day after the cull. People in Fivemiletown were told to wait for the review. Well, the review is here, and it makes grim reading for Andrew Muir and his Department.
“It finds there was no written policy for carrying out an operation of this kind. Staff were left to rely on custom and practice. Nobody properly considered a phased approach. And when the plan was changed halfway through the first day, nobody stopped to assess the risks. The result was cattle loose on a public road and distressing scenes in full view of local families.
“The detail is damning. Carcases were left lying in open fields because the Department's own plan said one thing and senior leadership had been told another. Ear tags were not all recorded. A site was declared clear when it wasn't, and a calf was found injured on the roadside days later. Three animals were shot after the decision to pause the cull, and the review still cannot say why.
“Crucially, the review finds the Department failed to strike a fair balance between its duties and the impact on the community. That is the very point local people have been making for months, and it was too often brushed aside. In fact the Minister himself went as far as to blame the local community in his correspondence with me.
“The report is also clear that Daera's silence allowed confusion and anger to grow. When I raised concerns in June, that was the moment to explain what had happened. Instead the Department said nothing, and its own frontline staff were left exposed as a result. That is a failure of leadership, not of the people on the ground. The victimhood and blaming didn’t serve the people I represent.
“The Minister has said he did not authorise or direct this operation. That may be so, but it is his Department and the buck stops with him. He now needs to come to the Assembly, accept these findings in full, and set out a clear timetable for delivering all ten recommendations. Fivemiletown deserves an apology, and farmers across Northern Ireland deserve to know this will never happen again”.