Thompson’s Bridge Farms Johnny Cathcart - 'Andrew Muir, Katrina Godfrey and Brian Dooher should step down' after 'flawed' cattle cull report
“My whole sense of the review is it has been carried out to provide as much scrutiny as possible without actually holding anyone accountable,” Johnny Cathcart has said.
Mr Cathcart, who runs a suckler beef and sheep farm in Kinawley outside Enniskillen – and who also shares videos of farm life on social media – said “what I predicted from the start has now happened”.
“Martin Blake should not have been asked to carry out this review on his own,” he added.
"There should have been a panel put together to carry out the review to share the workload and do it more thoroughly.”
Mr Cathcart, who travelled to Stormont to raise concerns about the manner in which the cattle were destroyed in June, said “in regards to the three calves that escaped, one of them was registered as dead and that is in the report, but the family now that has them, were never contacted or asked anything about what condition they found them in or anything to do with that.
"That is a major breach in my book,” he said.
"AERA chairperson Diana Armstrong put up a video about the calves and the farm who took them and how they have never been contacted.
"That is something that could hold someone accountable.
"There should also have been a firearms officer and a public service officer to assess if the public who were looking on was in any danger when the operation was being carried out.”
The Co Fermanagh farmer said that “no-one is disputing the deprivation order being served if this man was unable to look after his livestock”, but “it wasn’t a destruction order”.
“So why was every other avenue not gone through to the utmost level before they went to slaughtering them in a field.
“The report seems to be full of flaws and carried out to scrutinise as much as possible without holding anyone accountable,” he added.
Prior to the release of the report, Mr Cathcart said: “I knew it was going to be a fudge”.
“There should have been a panel of experts to carry it out.
"We have a civil servant government now and if a politician wants to get anything signed off there are so many hoops to jump through.
"It is all overregulated.
"I think (Agriculture Minister) Andrew Muir, (Permanent Secretary at the Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs) Katrina Godfrey and Brian Dooher (Chief Veterinary officer at DAERA) should step down.
"That is frustrating because if I do anything wrong on my farm I would end up in court and lose my single farm payment .
"There are 101 different things that could happen to me, but these people seem to be able to do what they like and sweep it under the carpet.
"They are never going to gain trust of farmers or indeed the public carrying on like that.”