New figures show 224,249 animals were used for scientific testing in Ireland last year.

The Health Product Regulatory Authority (HPRA) says more than 200,000 of those were mice.

More than 1,200 experiments were carried out on cats and dogs - while other animals used for testing included rabbits and horses.

The report says: "Of the total number of uses of animals in procedures, some 144,037 were used for ‘Regulatory and other routine production purposes’ which is a necessary requirement (under EU law) to test the safety, quality and potency of medicines (e.g. biological medicines such as vaccines)."

"The vast majority of the tests conducted were for toxicity and other safety testing including pharmacology, of which 98% were mice used for acute and sub-acute toxicity tests," it adds

Animal rights group ARAN says the figures show "a disturbingly high increase in the use of animals used in Irish experiments".

"These figures are shocking even to the hardest of hearts," says ARAN's John Carmody.

"The doors of laboratories across Ireland need to be opened up and the experiments that are conducted on these animals scrutinised in more depth, because this serious rise in animal figures shows that Irish research for human and veterinary medicine appears to be going around in circles with little being learned from the previous years of the same animals being most often used in the same experiments," he added.

The news comes just days after a contentious puppy breeding farm for the animal experiment industry was given planning permission by the British government.