Over 40 cattle have been seized and destroyed in the past 10 days by a new Department of Agriculture and Food team because their owners have been unable to provide full documentation on their origins and movements.
The seizures have taken place on farms in Co Longford and Co Westmeath following investigations by the new Cattle Movement Monitoring System (CMMS) team in Sligo.
It is one of four such units set up to verify the information being supplied by farmers, marts, dealers and shippers to the central computer which monitors the movement of the State's seven million cattle.
A court in Tralee, Co Kerry, heard last Monday that false information was supplied to the CMMS from Kingdom Co-operative Mart, of Cahirdaniel, Tralee, about cattle from Co Longford in 2002.
It was fined €4,200, with €750 witness expenses, after pleading guilty to six counts of supplying false information on cattle movements.
It heard that cattle were put through the central computerised system as having been moved through a mart when, in fact, they had been sold farm-to-farm and had never come near the mart.
The mart manager, Mr Denis Griffin, Talaught, Fenit, Co Kerry, also pleaded guilty to three counts of supplying false information, and three counts of false entry on a passport relating to a numbered animal.
He was fined €5,400 and ordered to pay witness expenses of €750.
Mr Griffin admitted to investigators the animals did not come through the mart. There had been a small fee for each entry on the passport.