I thank the committee for inviting us to meet with it. There are positives and negatives with regard to the Animal Health and Welfare Act 2013. It is far-reaching, excellent legislation that was introduced by the then Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine, Deputy Coveney, but it has some shortcomings, which I will address later. I will first dwell on the positives because we should not lose sight of them.
This legislation introduces the idea of welfare versus cruelty, whereas the previous legislation was focused on cruelty. The importance of that distinction is such that the Animal Health and Welfare Act 2014 is animal centred. It sees animals as sentient beings with rights in their own right as opposed to being possessions. It also incorporates the five freedoms. The welfare versus cruelty idea is the first positive and a big uplift in terms of where we were previously. The improvement notice has worked extremely well in our case. The numbers of animals coming through the pound system across Ireland, be they dogs or horses, have dropped dramatically since the commencement of this legislation in 2013. The improvement notice is a strong mechanism in terms of making sure that animal welfare issues are addressed, as opposed to having to take people to court. On an annual basis, our authorised officers would serve approximately 1,000 improvement notices, with 25 to 30 cases per annum being taken through the courts. It is an efficient and effective way of bringing about change in the welfare of animals that was not available previously.
The provision with regard to the authorised officers is very far-reaching. There was a lot of trust within government in terms of the powers that have been given to the NGOs such as the DSPCA and the ISPCA. That foresight has borne fruit.
It has resulted in experienced and local authorised officers who are well capable of handling the welfare issues on the ground as opposed to officers caught up in the rest of the system, such as gardaí and customs officers.
The DSPCA focuses on horses, wildlife and pets. We are not involved with farm animals in any shape or form unless we happen to come across something. Our main focus is on horses, wildlife and pets.
We were established in 1840, so we have been in the welfare business for a long time. We have been going for 181 years. I would like to think that, in that time, we have built up a lot of experience. The Animal Health and Welfare Act sits in with and maximises the benefit of that experience. There are many positives.
With regard to negatives and what we would like to see changed, the first area we should consider is animal mutilation, particularly the cropping of ears. There is a statutory instrument attached to the Animal Health and Welfare Act that deals with this issue, but, unfortunately, in the real world, in a practical sense, one almost has to be standing over somebody when he or she is mutilating an animal’s ears to bring forward a charge. We would like to see that changed. It is very difficult for us to bring forward prosecutions under the existing arrangements. We would like to see a ban on the ownership of animals with cropped ears. This could be staged over time. We would like to see the importation and showing of dogs with cropped ears addressed as a way of tackling this issue. Nothing has changed in respect of animal mutilation under the existing legislation.
The second area of deficiency is that of microchips. Taking dogs as an example, there are between 700,000 and 750,000 dogs alive in the State. The figure varies depending on whom you speak to; there is no census. The dogs are registered across four databases. Of the total number of animals, approximately 60% are registered. Again, depending on whom you speak to, 40% to 50% of the registration information in the databases is inaccurate. We would like to see that addressed. It is linked to my next comment, which concerns seized animals.
A situation arises when gardaí seize animals as evidence or seize aggressive dogs, primarily when operating under search warrants, particularly when combatting drug crime. There is really no accommodation anymore to deal with such animals. It was the role of the local authority pound in Dublin but the circumstances have changed. Therefore, there is a gap in that the Garda, when it seizes animals, is now calling on the likes of us, as charities, to take them in. It can sometimes take a year or two for the cases concerning the animals to come to court. We would like to see a change whereby the microchip in an animal would become definitive proof of ownership and whereby, if such proof is not available, the animal would, after five days, be available for rehoming and could be rehomed. After all, the legislation is entitled the Animal Health and Welfare Act. It is not in an animal’s best interest to be sitting for two or three years in the DSPCA. Disregarding the cost for a minute, it is not good for an animal’s welfare to have it waiting in premises such as ours while a court case is pending. We would like to see some system for handling dogs that are seized by gardaí and for the disposal of those animals, by which I mean rehoming as opposed to anything else.
The fourth area in which we would like to see change is that of puppy farming. Puppy farming is our biggest animal welfare problem that has not been addressed properly. The dog-breeding establishment, DBE, legislation is not administered by the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine. It looks after everything else pertaining to animals. It would make more sense to put everything under the one roof and to have the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine take on responsibility for the DBEs.
Some members will have seen the recent “Spotlight” programme on illegal exports to the UK. It is a bit of a misnomer because many of the DBEs registered in Ireland are involved in that trade. We have evidence to support that. The trading and transporting of very young puppies between six and eight weeks of age across borders is abhorrent and pure cruelty as far as we are concerned. The whole industry is based on the concept of cruelty to animals and the deception of the consumer. Therefore, we feel puppy farming is not properly addressed. It should be included under the Animal Health and Welfare Act. Animal health and welfare refers to everything except the DBEs, the puppy farms.
There is also the issue of the online selling of animals. The EU is introducing the European Digital Services Act. It is a step in the right direction in making sure that there is legislation governing what is happening online, that buyers are aware of what they are getting into and that there is full traceability. Laws are being introduced in the UK, one being Lucy's law, which dictates that a puppy cannot be sold without its mother being present. There are precedents in other countries in respect of addressing the puppy-farming issue. They should be considered as a means of improving our approach.
To sum up, we have a very positive approach. There are four areas of concern: cropped ears and mutilation; microchips; seized animals; and puppy farming.
