Outrageous slaughterhouse cruelty revealed in RTÉ documentary

RTÉ Investigates exposé, ‘Horses – Making a Killing’ showed terrified horses being beaten and even left to die as part of a wide ranging documentary designed to highlight what can happen to horses after they leave the spotlight. 

As a charity that was originally founded to protect vulnerable horses exported to slaughter, the revelations of systematic horse passport fraud come as no surprise and echo our longstanding warnings to authorities. The systemic failures highlighted in the documentary enable equines that have been signed out of the food chain to be re-identified and sent to European slaughterhouses, which is why we are calling for urgent action to be taken by governments and authorities.

Also featured in the programme to illustrate how easily horses can be illegally traded across Europe, are the Dover 26, our rescued group of horses that supposedly started their journey in Ireland but were discovered by UK authorities being smuggled out of Dover Port. Now being rehabilitated at our Hall Farm Rescue and Rehoming centre, we believe that some were destined for slaughter despite many being signed out of the food chain, and most were not fit for their intended journey.

Welfare during transport to slaughter is one of our lobbying aims but without a robust centralised equine traceability system, the EU’s proposals to limit journey times to 9 hours will not be enough.

Horses are often forgotten when it comes to EU legislation and World Horse Welfare has been working to ensure they are included in policies set by decision makers, most recently being invited to work with the European Commission on slaughter regulations so equines are protected.

The documentary RTÉ Investigate exposé ‘Horses – Making a Killing is available to watch on RTÉ Player but comes with a strong VIEWER ADVISORY WARNING due to some of the content it contains.