Dr. Andrew Kelly:

Deputy Willie Penrose asked what level of additional funding the ISPCA would require to help to deal with these issues. Last year, this committee recommended that the ISPCA should receive additional funding to recruit enough inspectors to cover the whole country. That has still not happened. We currently have eight inspectors covering 17 counties. My estimation is that we would require another ten inspectors to be able to cover the whole country. It costs an average of €50,000 per year to keep an inspector on the road, with motoring costs, equipment, veterinary costs, salaries, etc. It is a significant sum of money-----