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THIS IS THE set for the new TV3 show, ‘The People’s Debate with Vincent Browne’, which will air monthly from March.
TheJournal.ie understands that the pilot for the new show was filmed last night with the topic ‘The government deserves the confidence of the people.’
The show will involve 200 audience members with the audience acting as the debate panel. Any politician or organisation representative who wants to take part will have to sit in the audience, just like everyone else.
What do we think? Debate it out in the comments…
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We should ban halal slaughter here, it’s so savage and cruel to cut a poor animal’s throat while it’s still conscious.
I agree with you. However dream on if you think our own treatment of farm animals and their slaughter is not cruel and distressing. Sheep live to 12-14 years; lambs are taken too early from their mothers and slaughtered at 6-8 months. Farmers subject lambs to cruel practices without anaesthetic, like castration without anaesthetic. There is no way that the slaughter is as careful or kind as people like to think either – this has been proven countless times by secret filming. Lambs are just walking Euro signs for farmers. If you eat them, be aware of the fact that they have suffered and died young so you can do so.
What I meant to say is that sheep CAN live to 14 years – of course in our farming system none do.
@ eamon, I know a guy who delivers meat around London. One week a restaurant owner asked him for halal meat and he said no but he would get halal next week. He arrived back at the restaurant the following week and said it was halal meat so the restaurant owner bought it. Between me and you, it’s no more halal meat than the steak I’m eating for my dinner here lol.
no virgins for the guy you know then
@ltl, the guy I know is Irish that’s what makes it funny.
not really all that funny. someone who enjoys offending someone would enjoy it, but not funny
But all animals are stunned prior to slaughter in Ireland.
@ the spokesman- Like it or not, agree with it or not, selling meat claiming its halal or kosher when it’s not is quite a serious offence. It’s much like saying something is organic when it’s not.
I hope your friend has a good solicitor for when he gets caught.
@ Ted Logan. How would you prove it though. Maybe my friend is buying it from someone else who says it’s halal, how can you tell. If meat is organic you can test it prove this but not how the animal is killed. Maybe my friend made the story up for the crack, maybe I made the story up for the crack. Either way, yourself and the Gunnar are two damp rags.
Lambs are NOT castrated, they are banded. Doesn’t hurt them, they don’t notice it once released.
I have read in veterinarian reports that the banding is agonising. This is what the SPCA says: “When performed without anesthesia or analgesia, all methods of castration have consistently been shown to be acutely (and in some cases chronically) painful and stressful.”
Perhaps farmers could try a tight band around their own testicles for a day to see how it feels.
And why have some European countries banned banding on the grounds of being inhumane?
This UK Farm Animal Welfare Council report (official government body) says it how it is – subjecting baby lambs to severe and ongoing pain with no analgesia:
“…there is widespread acceptance that, without effective analgesia, all methods commonly used for both castration and tail docking of lambs cause pain and distress.”
“Rings can occasionally be applied incorrectly, trapping the rudimentary teats, and there are also reports of incorrectly applied rings, which have trapped the urethra causing retention of urine and renal failure. However, the major disadvantage is that, in the absence of effective pain relief, lambs experience considerable pain in the period following application of the
ring.”
“Research on lambs of various breeds and up to 8 weeks of age, using both behavioural and physiological (e.g. plasma cortisol) indicators, confirms that application of the ring leads to considerable pain and distress, certainly for 1.5 to 2 hours following application. It is also reported that, particularly in lambs less than 24 hours old, acute pain may so preoccupy and debilitate, that the lambs fail to ingest protective amounts of colostrum and therefore become predisposed to a variety of diseases.”
“Fewer studies have looked at the chronic effects of ring castration but the available
evidence indicates that pain and stress persist considerably longer than the immediate post application period. One study concluded that lambs of both 1 week and 4 to 6 weeks of age show behavioural signs of prolonged pain during the three days following ring castration.”
“Another study of ring-castrated 6 week-old lambs found that the peak incidence of painful behaviour coincided with the end-phase of the atrophy process and the point of maximum lesion size and severity, which was between 14 and 28 days following castration. There is currently much research interest in the wider effects of early noxious experiences and research is underway to examine whether castration in lambs is associated with both heightened pain and stress responses in later life.”
@ the statesman, I think the religious requirements for food preparation are stupid. Doing something to please a sky fairy makes no sense to me. However, it is treated quite seriously buy some.
I don’t care if your friend thinks he is hilarious or if you made up the whole thing up for poo and giggles to be honest.
Diddy, you need to differentiate between castrating using rings and shortening tails by rings.
Farmers are told that consumers don’t want the taste that comes with uncastrated lambs
shortening the tails has benefits in reducing the incidence of flystrike aka maggots
@Ted Logan, I like the name the statesman, but I first have to be a Spokesman before being elected to Statesman.
why export live animals? At least slaughter them here under decent conditions. Ireland has restarted live animal export to Turkey, long sea trip, horrible conditions on the other end. They are living animals that can feel distress and fear. It is not right to inflict this on another living creature.
or don’t kill them at all
A lot of these animals are going by road & the reason for sending them live is simple. Price. Farmers are fighting back against poor prices by cutting out the middle man the meat factories. While I wouldn’t like to be an animal travelling to North Africa or Turkey by road we still have the highest standards in the world for animal welfare in agriculture. You should see how these animals are treated in other countries that also export.
Totally agree Rob.
@mjhint – It always comes down to price. Lamb is very expensive in Ireland – Time to bring in New Zealand lamb into Ireland & bring the price down to a reasonable level.
Good man Rob? Well said. The Eu is shafting us to id say w/ cheap imports even we dont need them
Gave up eating lamb a long time ago. It’s a bit sick driving around admiring the little lambs one minute and eating them the next
Australia will never ban live export, their labour costs are too high and would exponentially increase the price of their cattle then including the fact that their customers WANT live animals. I would rather ban our exports merely to lower the price for our consumers.
So they were heading to have their throats slit but fell asleep permanently instead?
I would imagine neither suffocating slowly to death or having your throat cut while fully sentient are nice things to experience – the pain and terror must be awful.
Why is Ireland still exporting our sheep and cattle like this still? Disgusting.
Because these countries pay a premium price for our grass fed animals
Simon coveney was the agri minister responsible for bring back live exports. Perhaps the journal could have asked him his opinion on this during their interview?
I really don’t think we should be exporting live animals to places where we can’t guarantee have the same animal welfare as we do.
Seriously, it is delusional that we have good animal welfare in Ireland – it is a serious mistake to believe that. Firstly lambs are taken away from their mothers at a horribly young age, then they are slaughtered at four-six months’ old (their natural life span would be 12-14 years). Before that lambs will suffer tail docking without anaesthetic and the male lambs will suffer castration without anaesthetic (supposedly both are extremely painful, but why waste money on what you see as a walking Euro sign). Nor is their slaughter what we might hope – they are supposed to be stunned before having their throat slit – secret filming has shown that some lambs do not get stunned and are hung up to get their throats slit while still fully awake and sentient.
Seriously? Ah the poor lambs. . Thats sad and so cruel ..
So glad I’m a vegetarian. I’d hate to have ethical values where this type of activity was acceptable.
So glad I’m not a vegetarian. Mmm… Roast lamb for my Sunday roast.
Did you suffocate it yourself George.
@Joey: I would have slaughtered it myself if I couldn’t just buy a piece.
Such cute creatures. Poor little lamb.
Me too Joey – their treatment is cruel and horrible and I could not live with myself morally if I supported that.
George Brown and what are you being proud of?
That you are being cheeky or that you fall for lie and mass programming that dead flesh is tasty,or maybe that instead of loving carrying heart you give voice to your stomach and taste buds and they define you as a person ?
You are dead flesh eater who is boasting publicly about it and this makes you so proud?
Wow
I’m a proud dead flesh eater as well #LoveDeadFlesh
@Rein: I’m not proud, I simply value my satisfaction in eating meat above the lives of lowly creatures such as goats.
Yet u eat the “body & blood” of christ..
“Such cute creatures. Poor little lamb.”
Generation snowflake.
What’s more barbaric: That 120 Irish lambs suffocated on this journey over to a foreign country or Ireland is happy to export 1700 sheep abroad to be ritually and barbarically slaughtered without anaesthesia?
I dont think that muslim man is carrying a goat in the photo….
You seem to know.
@Peter: It’s his wife.
Nice one!
Peter,do you think it’s a donkey?.
Lambs to the slaughter !
What number is “1,8000″ ?
so sad for the other lambs that made it…….for a religious festival.
whats the significance of irish lamb to this?
Do you think all lambs are pets? Every sheep farm in Ireland is a lambs version of Auschwitz…
They were probably the lucky ones so.
Disgraceful,
Baa…..d situation
Oh dear, lamb was one thing I do eat because I’d heard how well treated they were here. Not keen on giving up meat but seeing things like this put me off to the point where I’m too uncomfortable to order a meat dish sometimes.
Lambs are well treated here!! So much rubbish being spouted here by misinformed people who havent a clue. I am a sheep farmer and id happily show any consumer around my farm any time and they can see for themselves the high standards we adhere to. I HATE the live export business it is cruel and barbaric but people have to understand that these are the lengths we have to go to – to find markets for lamb that provide any kind of reasonable income. The Irish consumer wants cheap food but with the highest of standards!! It can’t be done , also the middle man is the reason lamb is so expensive. The primary producers are getting screwed over while the factories & retailers are lining their pockets. It’s a sad reality
We breed lambs here and fly them half way across the world so people can kill them to appease a deity that was created in the mind of a 7th century Arabian warlord? Aren’t we a strange auld species?
Thanks for mutton
Brazen Head pub…full of “past sell by date” mutton…
Surprised no one left a ‘Silence of the Lambs’ joke.
A lot of outraged people here as usual. I presume you’re all vegans, yes?
A bleeding disgrace. Horrific conditions taken halfway across the world to be slaughtered by “people” who slit their throats and let them die slowly and painfully. Shame on farmers for allowing this.
Baaaaaad news story.
roast lamb with mash and gravy sweetcorn grilledwith butter and a glass of pure heaven
Why dont you throw yourself under the choochoo ye fool
They must have been like lambs to the slaughter.
Don’t tell morrissey
Someone is getting their 0s mixed up or their commas displaced Poor lambs
Baaaaaaa d news
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