Animal cruelty is “endemic” in the meat industry, a campaigner has said in the wake of an RTÉ documentary about the live export of cattle. 

Milking It: Dairy's Dirty Secret secretly filmed people kicking, dragging and hitting calves with sticks in markets up and down the country.

Such behaviour is illegal - but the campaign group Animals Behind Closed Doors said in reality it is commonplace.

“Nothing surprised me on screen last night,” spokesperson Gerry Boland told Lunchtime Live. 

“Nothing I saw last night was new to me.”

Animals Behind Closed Doors exists to promote a vegan lifestyle and believes live export - where animals are shipped overseas - is especially rife with cruelty.

“The animal welfare issues are endemic,” Mr Boland said.

“They’re systemic; it’s not just about a couple of individuals throwing calves around the place and pulling their tails and hitting them with sticks.

“The fact of the matter is, all the farming organisations know that live export in particular is extremely problematic for the animal.”

Mixed breed beef calves in meadows.

The Government describes live export as “a vital component of Ireland's livestock industry” and Irish Creamery Milk Suppliers Deputy President Dennis Drennan said he disagreed with Animals Behind Closed Doors on the issue.

“Gerry is saying that every bull calf that’s born in the country doesn’t have a purpose in this country,” Mr Drennan said.

“Sixty percent of the beef killed in this country at the moment comes from the dairy industry.”

Mr Drennan said he was shocked by what he witnessed in the documentary and there should be “full enforcement” of animal welfare rules.

“It was very disturbing and disappointing to see the mistreatment of animals on the programme,” he said.

“It’s certainly not something that we would condone and we’d be absolutely calling on the Department of Agriculture to investigate this immediately and make sure it doesn’t happen again.”

A cow on a farm. (Photo by Romy Fernandez/Sipa USA)

Mr Drennan said there should be “immediate action” to prevent it happening again and the footage is not representative of the industry as a whole.

“In every sector of life, you have good people and bad people and people who understand and recognise what’s right and what’s wrong,” he said.

“So, we need to make sure that the people are working with animals, either they’re trained sufficiently and they’re competent at doing this, or else they chose a different career where they’re not in contact with animals and can not subject animals to any level of mishandling.”

Taoiseach Leo Varadkar described the footage as “repugnant” and the Department of Agriculture has launched an investigation.

You can listen back here:

Main image: Beef calves. Picture by: Alamy.com