James Conroy remembers the night well. He had five 30-month-old cattle ready for slaughter in a field across the road from his house, just outside Mountmellick, in Co Laois.
“There were 10 cattle altogether, and the best five were separated out in a pen sometime between 7pm and 10pm that October night. The gates were broken and they were taken. I’d say they were killed straight away.”
Conroy, a part-time farmer, keeps only about 30 cattle in total, so the loss of his best five, worth about €1,600 each, was a blow. “The problem for me was that I built a shed last year and was hoping the sale of the cattle would cover the cost of building it.” Conroy’s cattle were not insured for theft, but he received €2,000 from a local fundraising initiative after the incident.
“It was a big shock. Other farmers were very supportive, but someone had to be looking at the cattle a couple of times before they were stolen. There are gangs out there, and there had to be local involvement, because cattle will move away from strangers,” Conroy says.
All cattle have identification tags on their ears, and they can’t officially be sold on without documentation to back up the tags. “There will always be butchers who will buy cheap meat from the back of vans,” says Conroy.
Cattle rustling has been on the rise in the past two years. Forty-eight cattle were reported stolen in Co Monaghan last year, up from 13 in 2012. Thirty-eight cattle were stolen in Limerick in 2013, up from 13 the year before. Mayo has seen cattle thefts rise from nine to 34 in the past two years.
When Conroy's cattle were stolen, Charles Flanagan TD asked Martin Callinan, as commissioner, whether the Garda could set up a cattle-rustling unit.
Since then gardaí in Monaghan have been investigating cattle theft around the country – and this month will take more than 30 recovered cattle to marts in the midlands, to try to return them to their owners.
This week Conroy met a representative of the insurance company FBD, which has just introduced cover for livestock theft in response to the increase in rustling.
“There is nothing stopping my cattle being stolen again so I’ve decided to insure the ones I have,” says Conroy. “All I can say to other farmers is beware. It’s an awful thing to have your cattle stolen. You put them in the field at night and hope they will be there the next day.”
