Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Wednesday, 5 December 2012

Select Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine

Animal Health and Welfare Bill 2012: Committee Stage (Resumed)

11:00 am

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

I know what the Deputy is getting at in proposing this amendment. We had a long debate in the Seanad on the issue of selling of an animal to a minor under the age of 16. At the bottom of page 22, the section states that a person shall not sell an animal to a person who is apparently under the age of 16 years or give an animal as a prize to a person who is apparently under the age of 16 unless that person is accompanied by a person of full age, to whom section 22 refers - in other words, the sale of an animal.

What Deputy Ferris seeks in the amendment is that an animal could be sold to a person under the age of 16 if he or she was accompanied by an adult. My argument to that is to ask why the adult would not buy the animal in such a case, because he or she would be responsible for it in any event. In this legislation we would like to bring absolute clarity to this issue of selling animals to minors - that is, to say that a horse, which in most cases is the point at issue, can only be sold to a person who is over the age of 16.

If one is gifting an animal to a minor, that is a different issue. One can do so if the minor is accompanied by an adult. Those aged 15 and 16 should not be buying and selling animals. If they are accompanied by an adult, the adult can do the buying. Therefore, I do not propose to accept the amendment.

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