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

I am happy to accommodate the replacing of the word "necessary" with "reasonable" in this section, but I am not prepared to do the same in the general animal welfare section because that would undermine the Bill's new approach towards animal welfare. Section 8 deals with the prohibition on farm animals from straying. I accept that some flexibility is needed in this regard. That is why the wording "take all necessary measures to ensure that" is being changed to "take all reasonable measures to ensure that" animals do not stray. I agree with the Deputy on the matter. After a lengthy discussion in the Seanad, we agreed to prepare an amendment at a later stage.

In respect of amendment No. 8, we did not deal with the commonage issues. The general thrust of section 8 is to require that a fence, structure or building be erected to ensure animals do not stray. There is, of course, an exception to this rule where a boundary is shared in a commonage area. We need to accommodate this in the legislation, whcih is why amendments Nos. 8 and 9 do the same thing. The legal advice we have received leads us to think our wording is slightly better, but essentially the amendments share the same motive.

We have tried to understand the reasoning behind amendment No. 10. I suspect it deals with mink farming in County Donegal, in particular, because that happens to be where most such farms are located. I am not opposed to the amendment. It adds a new subparagraph (iii) to subsection (1)(b) with the following effect:

all buildings, gates, fences, hedges, boundary walls and other structures used to contain the animal are constructed and maintained in a manner that minimises -(i) the risk that the animal will stray,
(ii) the risk, or spread, of disease onto or from the land or premises on which the animal is kept,
(iii) the risk that the animal will damage the surrounding population of indigenous wild animals or the natural flora and fauna of the surrounding environment.

Most of us who know about farming realise that mink can do extensive damage to wildlife if they are released into the wild. We are happy, therefore, to accept the amendment.