A County Cork farmer was jailed today for three years for injecting his cattle with slurry in an attempted compensation fraud.
Cornelius Keane (37) pleaded guilty to four charges relating to his plan to defraud the Department of Agriculture by faking the symptoms of tuberculosis.
He stood to gain a one-off payment of £20,000 if successful, along with a further £900 each month for as long as his farm in Bawnbue, near Drimoleague, remained under departmental restriction.
Mr John Murray, a veterinary inspector with the Department, told Cork Circuit Criminal Court that Keane injected 49 of his 133 cattle with slurry washings from his milking parlour.
The court was told that the cows injected suffered very considerable cruelty and that some had lumps "half the size of gaelic footballs" when Mr Murray visited the farm last February.
Keane today apologised in court adding he had been in financial difficulty at the time.
PA