Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

We have set up an animal welfare hotline for those who wish to report cruelty or have a concern that there might be cruelty. It is up to authorised officers to make a judgment as to whether there are reasonable grounds to take action. Obviously, we must ensure authorised officers are properly trained to make an intelligent judgment. If we were to decide not to include this provision because a neighbour might wish to cause a problem for another neighbour by falsely reporting something, we would simply have to allow cruelty to occur and gather evidence as we must do before taking action. That should not be the position. There might be exceptional cases where the complaints are groundless, but if that is the case, we should look at whether the person who reported it broke the law. If an authorised officer has reasonable grounds to believe somebody is offending under the legislation, we wish to give him or her the power to intervene. It is that simple.