A government vet has received an apology and a £1.25m settlement for constructive dismissal – the largest payout of its kind ever awarded in the country.
Tamara Bronckaers was forced out of her job after her bosses failed to act on concerns she raised about the flouting of traceability rules at livestock marts in Northern Ireland.
An expert on livestock market legislation, Dr Bronckaers raised the alarm with her managers at the NI Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs (Daera) after spotting that rules around so-called “deleted moves” were being abused to enhance livestock values.
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In this process, if a dealer buys an animal at a market without having someone to sell it to immediately, the movement can be deleted if the animal doesn’t leave the site before it is sold on.
However, Dr Bronckaers spotted that at some market animals would leave the market to join the dealer’s herd before a buyer was found – but that move was deleted from the section in the tracing system visible in markets.
The fewer the moves, the more money an animal is worth.
Welfare concerns
Dr Bronckaers also took photographic evidence of sheep housed overnight at Ballymena Livestock Market five years ago, in overcrowded conditions and with a lack of food and drink.
The tribunal heard that concerns she raised with her line manager, Dr Julian Henderson, now the temporary deputy chief vet in Northern Ireland, were ignored.
The tribunal judge noted that she had been professionally ignored, undermined and excluded and that it was reasonable for her to regard the actions of NI chief vet Robert Huey towards her as “intimidating, patronising, belittling and dismissive of her as a professional”.
Dr Bronckaers has since spoken of the impact on her mental health and family life, describing the past few years as “extremely harrowing” for her and her family.
“This outcome has been a long time coming and I can move on in the knowledge that I did what was right, and I now have a long-awaited and justified apology from the department,” she said.
“I witnessed first-hand animals suffering unnecessarily and believe that over a five-year period in excess of 20,000 animals were involved in deleted moves which would have had significant implications for traceability within the supply chain.”
Client’s bravery
Her solicitor, John McShane, of McCartan Turkington Breen, said he was “quite simply astounded” by Dr Bronckaers’ bravery.
“She was willing to do what was ethically right to the detriment of herself, her family, and her standard of living in retirement.”
In a statement, Daera said it “takes extremely seriously” all the matters that contributed to the outcome of the tribunal. It said it would be progressing an urgent internal review into them.
“The department unreservedly apologises to Dr Tamara Bronckaers for the hurt and distress caused,” it said.
