08/10/2025
🙄🙄🙄
The Department of Agriculture ’s Big Plan?
For anyone outside Ireland, every horse owner here is meant to have what’s called an Equine Premises Number (EPN). It’s basically a registration with the Department of Agriculture that links you to the land or stables where your horses are kept. It’s compulsory for anyone who keeps, breeds, or trades horses, the foundation of Ireland’s “traceability system.”
Now, onto the latest development…
Well, it’s official. After years of talk, committees, and consultations, the Department of Agriculture has finally unveiled its big move on equine traceability. Drumroll please… it’s a booklet.
Yes, a shiny, printed, taxpayer funded leaflet explaining “all you need to know about equine identification and traceability.” Posted out to every registered equine premises holder in the country. In other words, sent to the only people who already know this stuff.
The people who won’t see it? The ones not registered. The ones doing dodgy passport swaps, the ones still shifting unchipped horses through the back door. But sure, at least the rest of us can add a colourful new leaflet to the pile of pointless paperwork we already have.
You can nearly picture the meeting:
“Let’s fix horse traceability!”
“Great idea! Shall we tighten enforcement, improve inspections, link vets, sales and PIO databases?”
“Oh no, that sounds like work. Let’s print a few thousand glossy brochures instead.”
I’d love to know what this cost. If it’s anything close to the bike shed for €350,000 nonsense, then no wonder the country’s broke. Imagine how many microchip scanners, enforcement officers, or welfare checks that money could have funded.
And here’s the bitter twist, it’s wrapped up in a tone like they’ve just reinvented the wheel. “All you need to know about equine identification and traceability.” Seriously? The people with herd or equine premise numbers already do know. We’re the ones paying for passports, chips, and compliance while watching others flout every rule going without consequence.
Traceability matters, of course it does. But it isn’t going to be solved by sending out leaflets. It’ll be solved when there’s real accountability, when fake passports, false ownerships, and unregistered movements are actually investigated. When animal welfare and law go hand in hand instead of hand in glove with bureaucracy.
Until then, we’ll file this one where it belongs, right in the bin beside the rest of the broken promises.
Photo credit: RM
