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

The idea behind this section is that, where possible, we should try to keep offences out of court, which is the same rationale behind the penalty points system whereby if people accept they are at fault and want to pay up and be done with it having learned their lesson, we should have a system that facilitates that. If somebody has mistreated an animal, either a domestic animal owner or a farmer, and he or she is called on by an authorised officer, that officer should have the power to issue a fixed payment notice, which would also give an instruction about what needs to be done to deal with the animal welfare issue. It will be positive for animal owners or farmers, in particular, to stay out of court and the fine of €250 will be a rap over the knuckles with an instruction to improve animal welfare and deal with the issue raised.

I have listened to the arguments and I do not understand why farming organisations have a problem with this. Would they rather that farmers or animal owners be taken to court for relatively minor animal welfare legislation breaches or a fixed penalty notice, which would not require a court hearing or result in a criminal record and all the stress and cost that brings? If I have, as the Deputy describes them, trigger happy authorised officers, I should remove them from the list because that is not the way they should behave. Authorised officers should be consistent, operate under a common code in terms of how they behave and interact with people they are encountering or inspecting. My understanding is that while an authorised officer visits a farm, for example, the Department issues the fixed payment notice. When an animal's welfare issue is prosecuted following a visit to a farm or a home owner, the officer must go back to the Department for a decision on the issuance of a fixed payment notice. People who are overly eager to dish out such notices or who want to flex their muscles should not be authorised officers and even if they are, they cannot issue notices on the spot. They need to return to the Department to seek sanction to issue a notice, which is a relatively small fine in addition to a notice requiring a change of practice.

The alternative is that authorised officers take people to court. That is the only option available to them and this is madness. It is the nuclear option every time where either nothing is done or people are taken to court. We are trying to arrive at a middle ground where when it is reasonable to say to a farmer that he or she should not do what he or she is doing or to say to an animal owner that what he or she is doing is unacceptable and he or she should pay €250, read the notice and conditions and we will leave it at that. Everybody can learn a lesson and move on. That is a sensible approach, which is being put in place to protect animal owners from being taken to court for oversights or for doing something that is not a significant breach of the legislation. In the same way many people are happy to accept penalty points for motoring offences rather than receiving a summons to appear in court, in most cases people would accept a fine under this section if they recognise they have something wrong and can move on from that. If they think they are being hard done by, they can go to court where they would have been taken anyway. I do not understand why people are so nervous about this measure, which offers an out of court settlement that both sides should welcome.