UFU Calls for NI Agriculture Minister's Resignation Over Cattle Cull
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- Ulster Farmers' Union called on Alliance politician Muir to quit on Friday over his department's handling of a 29-30 June cull of 51 cattle at a Fivemiletown, County Tyrone farm whose owner had been disqualified from keeping animals for life.
- UFU President John McLenaghan named the specific trigger: Muir's decision to appoint a single reviewer — former Irish Chief Veterinary Officer Dr Martin Blake — rather than the independent panel of experts the UFU had requested, calling it 'the straw that broke the camel's back.'
- Muir hit back that 'the days of the Ulster Farmers' Union dictating government policy are over' and claimed he is 'arguably the first minister in the history of this state that is not beholden to one vested interest.'
- Alliance Deputy leader Eóin Tennyson argued the cull is being 'used as an excuse to target Muir's job,' saying the resignation call 'before that review has even concluded, I think speaks very plainly to the motivations behind this.'
- DAERA carried out the cull after the farmer failed to comply with an 8 June court deprivation order; welfare inspections dating to 2022 had found 33 animal carcasses, feed contaminated with urine and faeces, and emaciated animals.
- McLenaghan rejected the 'dictating' label, pointing to the UFU's 120-year history of working with 'every government there has been' and noting the union is routinely invited into DAERA 'co-design' projects due to department staffing gaps.
Why it matters: McLenaghan names a single concrete grievance — Muir's appointment of sole reviewer Dr Martin Blake instead of an expert panel — as the resignation trigger, sharpening the dispute into a process complaint rather than a cull protest. The Blake review is expected to report by early autumn, putting the animal-welfare and legality questions around the Fivemiletown operation on a defined timeline regardless of whether Muir stays.
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