A €500,000 Equine Traceability Improvement Scheme 2025 has been announced by the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine, Martin Heydon TD, to fund improvements in how equine life events are captured.
The scheme will provide €500,000 in funding to support the use of IT solutions by passport issuing organisations and equine sales houses to monitor the movements of Ireland’s equine population more effectively.
The scheme is under the Minister’s plan to implement the recommendations of the Professor Patrick Wall report ‘Reforms to strengthen equine identification, traceability and welfare’, published in March 2025. The report was commissioned in the wake of the RTÉ Investigates Horses - Making a Killing exposé which highlighted serious loopholes in Ireland’s traceability systems.
The scheme will be open to the seven passport issuing organisations (PIOs) as well as the five main equine sales houses. The seven PIOs are Horse Sport Ireland, Weatherbys Ireland Ltd, Connemara Pony Breeders Society Ltd, Irish Harness Racing Association Ltd, Irish Piebald & Skewbald Assoc, T/A Leisure Horse Ireland, Irish Warmblood Studbook Ltd, Kerry Bog Pony Co -Operative Society.
The Irish Field believes the five sale houses who can apply for the scheme are Goffs, Tattersalls, Goresbridge, Cavan and the Connemara Pony Sales, Clifden.
The scheme is now open and the deadline for receipt of applications is September 30th 2025.
Launching the scheme, Minister Heydon highlighted the potential of IT: “IT solutions have been transformational in the traceability of animals. In his report on how to strengthen equine traceability, Professor Paddy Wall recommends the adoption of technology to reduce admin burden and have our systems avail of the best international advancements. I want the beneficiaries of this scheme to use this aid to explore the innovative options available to improve how we capture equine life events and the movement of our equine population.”
The Wall report proposed a number of wide-ranging recommendations and Minister Heydon published an action plan to deliver the reforms. A number of these actions are based on the implementation of IT solutions including automated transfer of information between equine PIOs and private veterinary practitioners (PVPs) and owners/operators of horses; implementing a digital solution for notification of change of ownership and automated transfer of ownership data from sales and auction houses.
The plan also includes a digital solution to capture real time updates relating to a horse’s life events such as the chipping and marking of a foal by the PVP, as well as the use of QR codes on passports.
The Minister added: “Robust traceability is fundamental to ensuring horse owners and keepers are accountable for the welfare of their horses. Without accountability, horses are vulnerable to neglect and mistreatment. Investing in better traceability is an investment in better equine welfare.”
Abattoir approval
As reported in our sister paper, the Irish Farmers’ Journal, the Department of Agriculture is currently reviewing applications for the approval of new horse slaughter facilities following the closure of Shannonside Foods in Kildare last year.
Shannonside was shut down in June 2024 following the RTÉ programme which exposed animal welfare breaches and alleged identity fraud there. It was Ireland’s only licensed equine abattoir and there has been no slaughtering facility for horses in Ireland since.
Two separate submissions are currently being considered, the Department said this week. Approval to operate as an equine slaughter premises, similar to all meat food business operator applications, is a two-stage process. The first step is the submission of a notification of intent, and both applications are at this stage.
The Department has said that it is not possible to say when an approval for an equine slaughter premises will issue.
Export
The Irish Farmers Journal also reported the number of horses being exported for slaughter has increased significantly since Shannonside Foods was closed 13 months ago. According to the Department, the number of horses exported for slaughter in 2024 was 165 and, to date in 2025 is 359. “As regards the current trade in export of horses, if there is a market for such horses, the trade may well continue, even if a slaughter facility becomes available here,” a Department spokesperson said.