I move that the Bill be now read a Second Time. There has been no major legislation for the prevention of cruelty to animals in this country since 1911 when the Protection of Animals Act was passed in the Westminster Parliament. There have been some measures of limited scope but no wide-reaching Act. The Bill now before the House aims at extending the law on a wider scale.
The House may ask: why is this kind of legislation desirable? There are two clear reasons: the first is that in the lapse of a half century, standards of living and standards of justice for human beings have changed, and animals are affected by those changes. The fact that there is greater affluence in a country means, for example, that people can buy more pets. The fact that people are better off means that they can raise the standard of their treatment of animals. The animal world and the world of mankind are indissolubly linked in that way.
Other changes in our mere physical environment help to make us eager to produce legislation of this kind. To take a simple example: the increase in the number of motor cars means that certain people—not very many but there are some—who, when they are tired of a pet, can drive into the country very easily and abandon the animal in a way they could not have done when they had not a car to step into. One of the clauses in this Bill deals with that point. Again, as Senators are aware, there has been a great increase in the use of chemical substances on the land, insecticides of various kinds. Some of us have read in American literature rather alarming reports of the effect of these insecticides on animal life, but there is nothing alarmist in what I have to say. I think it is beyond dispute that the use of this kind of chemical substance on a greater scale may need special legislation. There are other factors I could mention, but it all adds up to this: changes in our standard of living demand changes in the standard of living—and I should say of justice— for animals.
In fact, in other countries there has been a considerable amount of legislation since 1911. I could quote many Acts from the whole of western Europe. For one reason or another, in our country there has been no major legislation. So, in this Bill, there is an attempt to meet the demands of the changed conditions in our lives and in the lives of animals. The Bill has been drafted by the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. I wish to say with all the emphasis I can command that the society and I, as the mover of the Bill, are immensely grateful for the work done by various Departments in helping with the drafting of this measure. They have been most helpful at all levels and stages, and the fact that the Bill is as good as it is is due, to a large extent, to the final touches of perfection which they put to it. I shall refer to that again, but I should like to say it at the outset.
In legislation of this kind, there are, I think, four main interests to keep in mind, four conflicting interests. I am quite sure that later in the debate here these interests, with the one exception of the dumb animals, will be represented very clearly. First, there is the public in general, especially the weaker section, and especially the children. Four of the sections of the Bill will make things safer for children in the countryside and, to some extent, in the city when certain kinds of animals are muzzled and when certain kinds of contests are prohibited and when certain resolutions about the laying of poison are accepted. That is an interest which we must keep prominently in mind—that the lives of our children will be safer—as we have done in the debate we have just had on the Adoption Bill.
The second interest is that of the owners and users of animals. Here, a certain psychological difficulty which may arise in the debate must be firmly faced. I fear there is a certain feeling that those who attempt to extend the laws for the protection of animals are —to speak frankly—either interfering busybodies or impractical sentimentalists. There is that feeling, and there is some truth in it to the extent that some people who talk a great deal about cruelty to animals and even write letters about it, but do not do anything are, to my mind, sometimes interfering busybodies and impractical sentimentalists. But I say that the serious-minded persons and organisations which devote much of their time to prudent and necessary effort to prevent cruelty to animals are not of that kind. Their motives are certainly not officiousness or sentimentality. They do good work because they believe that humanity has an inescapable responsibility for the animals under their control. They have taken great care to understand the point of view of the owners and users of animals, farmers and others. They have gone as far as they possibly can in every case to understand their point of view and meet it. The last thing they want to do is to impose unnecessary burdensome regulations on the owners and users of animals, but they do say that as times change both materially and psychologically, the law for animals will need to be changed also, just as, on a much greater scale, the law for human beings needs to be changed from time to time.
I have now listed two of the four main interests concerned in legislation of this kind. The third interest is the enforcers of the law, the police. They have a great responsibility in the matter. They already have considerable commitments. Great care has been taken not to put any unnecessary burden on them, and in this we had the expert advice of the Department of Justice, and I think the framers of the Bill have gone the whole way to meet it. We are aware that the Civic Guards are heavily burdened at the moment; we do not want to add to their responsibilities and troubles unnecessarily.
The fourth interest cannot speak for itself—the dumb animal. This is not the time or the place to argue about our moral responsibility to them, or the desirability of that sense of kinship with the animal world which one finds in St. Francis of Assisi or, in a very remarkable way, in the hermit monks of the early Irish church. It would be out of place to talk on the moral side, I need hardly say. But since our business here is to make good laws for Ireland and, in this particular case, for the animals of Ireland, I shall take the liberty of referring to one eminent Irish Member of Parliament of the early 19th Century whose name and fame are respected wherever this history of legislation for animals is reviewed. I refer, as many may have guessed, to Richard Martin—"Humanity Dick," as he was called. He was born in Connemara. He went to the Irish Bar. He became a Member of Parliament for Galway in Westminster and there he devoted himself to fighting for the cause of animals. He was supported by another Irishman, Richard Brinsley Sheridan, and he fought continuously.
In the year 1822, he introduced A Bill to Prevent—I quote the Title—"Cruel and Improper Treatment of any Horse, Cow, Ox, Heifer, Steer, Sheep or Other Cattle". There was much mockery in the House of Commons of Richard Martin. The Bill was mostly greeted with laughter. But he pressed on, and in 1824 Martin's Act became law. It was the first Act of the kind, so far as I know, in Europe; perhaps if we take parliamentary measures, in the world, although we do know that in the Old Testament there were certain laws for the protection of animals. So probably the first Parliamentary Act for the protection of animals was promoted and put through by an Irishman. He devoted the rest of his life to the same cause, spent a great deal of his fortune on it, and died just before a more comprehensive Act was passed in 1835. I shall not dwell longer on that. It is a source of pride to any Irish person that the first effective legislation of this kind came from one of our own countrymen.
I turn now to the contents of the Bill before us. There has been an explanatory memorandum. I shall merely add some comments, leaving detailed discussion to the Committee Stage and may I emphasise that on the whole—I imagine the House will agree—this is essentially a Committee Bill.
Perhaps I should say that all the sections in the Bill, with the exception of four which I shall mention, have been agreed to by the Departments concerned. I shall mention those in particular later. I shall go very briefly through the Bill now.
The first two sections, the Short Title and the definitions are formal. Section 3 is the result, as I said, of the increase of the use of motor cars to abandon animals. That is what it amounts to. There is nothing to cover the abandonment of animals as specifically described in this section in the 1911 Act and there are a good many cases of cats and dogs being sent out of a car to stray away and die in cruel circumstances. So, I think this is a section which should well commend itself to the House.
I have been questioned a few moments ago about Section 4—the docking and nicking of horses. It is a fact that there is very little docking and nicking of horses in Ireland at the present time. But that is sometimes a matter of fashion. It could come back again. There is no legal means of prohibiting it at the moment. This section would cover that.
Section 5 is not covered in our Pounds (Provision and Maintenance) Act of 1935. It is a humane section and I imagine the House will not find anything in principle to disagree with in it.
Section 6 imposes no restriction; it makes things easier in some ways.
Sections 7 and 8 are opposed by the Department of Agriculture to a certain extent. These concern the restrictions on spring traps. I think all in the House will agree that these spring traps, if laid in the open, can be extremely dangerous to children and animals in general. The Department of Agriculture urges that at the moment efforts to control the rabbit menace are a source of considerable expense in forestry programmes and programmes of that kind. They say the most effective means undoubtedly is the gin trap and they would like this provision to be postponed for a while. Secondly, they think that the placing of these traps in artificial tunnels described as not exceeding 12 inches in height is too strict and they simply call for the deletion of "not exceeding 12 inches in height". It is a concession that might reasonably be made.
Section 9 extends the Act of 1911 to include a dog and cat. Previous to this they were not included. It seems desirable to include them now.
Section 10 gives power to the Guards to destroy animals in agony in certain special cases. Previously they had to call a veterinary surgeon. That might take a considerable time in a lonely part of the country. It seems a desirable provision.
Section 12 extends the protection of the 1911 Act to all animals, that is, it extends it to wild animals. It broadens the law to some degree.
Section 13 is straightforward.
Section 14 is definitely opposed by the Department of Agriculture. Section 14 is one of the really controversial parts of the Bill. I think it would be better to postpone detailed discussion of it until the Committee Stage.
The prohibition on public contests with animals is straightforward. I do not need to comment on it.
Section 16 is an important one. This is to meet the difficulty of proving ownership in summonses for cruelty to animals. The easiest thing is for everyone to disclaim ownership and in that way a great deal of clear cruelty goes unpunished. There is a safeguard in this clause. The presumption can be rebutted. I hope the House will find it a desirable extension of the law.
Section 17 is a new departure. What is going to happen a dog that strays away? Its owner has no knowledge of it. Is it never to have a legitimate owner again? This section prescribes the means by which legitimate ownership can be established with certain safeguards.
Section 18 deals with disqualification. I do not think I need delay over it. Section 19 deals with the removal of disqualification. Certain amendments will have to be made on Committee Stage to meet an oversight here. I do not think I need go into it at this point.
There was a good deal of opposition from Bord na gCon, the Greyhound Board, to sections 20, 21, 22 and 23. Some of the sections they would like deleted; others they would like modified. Again, that is largely a matter to be argued out on Committee.
Section 24 is an important one—the use of anaesthetics in operations on animals. This will make things easier for the veterinary surgeons of Ireland who, in fact, helped in the original drafting of the section. At the moment, the regulations are stricter than those prescribed in the Bill. They demand a general anaesthetic where, in the opinion of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals and of the veterinary profession, a general anaesthetic is not needed. So, in certain cases, if this goes through, the veterinary surgeons will be able to use any kind of anaesthetic which they think is satisfactory. This eases the situation.
In order to enlist the sympathy of the House as far as possible, perhaps I should now mention that in the original draft of this Bill, there were two sections which were taken over for Government Bills and have been enacted as separate measures quite recently. Some of the sections of the Firearms Bill which passed through this House this afternoon were in the original draft of this Bill. It was taken out as soon as the society heard that there would be special legislation. There was another case of that kind, too, in which a Ministerial Order took over one of the original sections in the original draft of the Bill and it is not now in operation.
In Part 5, sections 25 to 28 are the result of what we call the affluent state, largely. Now that people are richer, they are buying pets on a much wider scale and I am afraid sometimes are treating them rather carelessly. This is an attempt to meet the changed conditions.
Section 29 is the other very controversial point of this Bill. It is opposed by the Department of Agriculture. It is opposed by commercial interests. The object is to make the killing of pigs more humane. At the moment, in the bacon factories the methods adopted in some of them are—to the mind certainly of the Society—lacking in humanity. I shall not describe them in detail but if necessary I shall do so on Committee Stage. A good many of the slaughterhouses have adopted methods of humane killing, but the fact is that many of the bacon factories have not and are not eager to do it, apparently. This is regrettable in one special way. I am informed that if one uses some way of anaesthetising the animals, making them unconscious before killing them, the quality of the meat will undoubtedly be better, that is if the animal is relaxed when the actual fatal blow comes—it has something to do with the bleeding, which some members of the House will understand better than I do, and something to do with the state of the meat after that form of killing which makes it a considerably better commercial product.
So, this Bill has wide reaching implications. I imagine it will be heavily debated on the Committee Stage. The society is eager that it should be given full consideration.
I must now go back to one other section. I am afraid I did not give it the attention it deserved—No. 14. This is the prohibition on the use of strychnine. This is opposed by the Department, but the Society feels that, on balance, it is important that not only valuable gamedogs and other animals which may be killed in agony by this brutal poison, should be safeguarded, and also we must consider the interests of children. There is always the risk that this strychnine poison may get displaced. In fact, there is one case on record that strychnine poison was laid in a certain town in black sausage meat, and another in a district not far from this House, where a man was fined who admitted he had put strychnine in raw sausages in his front garden—so I am informed.
There is a frightful danger there, not merely to dogs but to our young children. I should like the House to keep this very carefully in mind during the debate. It is true.
I received many letters, some of them very cranky and some very sensible, as the promoter of this measure. As the writer of one letter said very forcefully, sheep are more important to this country than dogs. That is a very arguable proposition. But the lives of children are more valuable, and we must consider this matter very seriously.
That is a rather rushed going-through the Bill. As I emphasised, it is very much a Committee Bill. I leave it now to the collective wisdom of the House for their alteration, their amendment and their improvement, I hope. I should like to end by once again thanking all those who, besides the Society, have been concerned with the promoting of this Bill, especially the Department concerned and especially the Department of Justice. Frankly, it has been an education to me to go through the final draft of this Bill with a high official in the Department of Justice. In future, when I am commenting on the drafting of a Bill I shall be very much more understanding than in former years. I see now that a good, conscientious draftsman will put as much care into the choosing of a word or the placing of a comma in an Act of Parliament as a great poet such as Shakespeare or William Butler Yeats would take in choosing a word or placing a comma in one of his poems or plays. It is a very great thing for our country that such care and efficiency is available. I would add, further, that this was voluntary work. It was adding to the work of many civil servants. I am highly appreciative of what they have done and also, I need hardly say, to the officials of this House. Finally, I should like to express my gratitude to the Senators who have been good enough to put their names down in support of this Bill in principle. All I ask this evening is support for the general principles of the Bill; that our legislation for the protection of animals does need improvement. Other matters will undoubtedly come up on Committee Stage.
