IRISH UNIVERSITIES HAVE outsourced animal testing to overseas labs beyond the oversight of Ireland’s regulator.

The universities have spent hundreds of thousands of euros in recent years on the animal experiments, and refused to release key documents to our journalists when we tried to uncover the full details of the tests.

Anti-vivisection campaigners have described the practices as “outsourcing cruelty beyond the EU” and called for institutions to be prevented from commissioning overseas experiments that would not be permitted under EU rules.

The University of Galway and RCSI University of Medicine and Health Sciences both acknowledged they have commissioned or paid for animal experiments outside the EU.

The Journal Investigates identified 17 studies for Irish universities that were conducted outside the EU between 2020 and 2026.

Linked to research into diabetes, cardiovascular disease, cancer and women’s health, the experiments involved pigs, sheep, rabbits, chinchillas, mice and rats. The studies were carried out at facilities in the United States (US), India and Malaysia.

In one outsourced study, carried out in the US, mice had folds of skin repeatedly compressed between magnets. In others, sheep had their ovaries removed, rabbits had veins in their eyes deliberately blocked and chinchillas had their eardrums perforated.

However, the Health Products Regulatory Authority (HPRA), which regulates animal research in Ireland, has no regulatory role over procedures carried out abroad.

It does not authorise the projects, inspect the overseas facilities or require Irish institutions to report the animals involved. Animals experimented on abroad are also not included in Ireland’s annual “animal use” statistics.

University of Galway and RCSI withheld records that The Journal Investigates requested revealing exact animal numbers, welfare outcomes and details of how some overseas facilities were assessed, citing exemptions under the Freedom of Information Act.

That’s despite financial records showing that some of these experiments received hundreds of thousands of euro from public funds, including grants awarded by State agency Enterprise Ireland.

That includes University of Galway who paid over €400,000 to overseas organisations involved in animal research.

Tender documents and published research link some of the projects to State funding, but the records released do not establish the funding sources for every study.