Mr. Frank Nyhan:

The other question that Senator Daly asked related to sanctions and what sanctions we would envisage imposing on people who were responsible for the ill-treatment of greyhounds. There is legislation, the Welfare of Greyhounds Act 2011, which provides sanctions. Under the new Bill head 20 appears to be where this would be addressed through exclusion orders for persons found to be in that position.

Deputy Cahill's point about welfare is well made. There is a perception that greyhound owners do not care for their dogs, which is not true and people who know greyhound owners know there is an empathy between dog owners and dogs. Nevertheless, it is accepted that not enough has been done on the welfare of greyhounds in the past and it is an area that must be addressed. It is this board's intention that all retired racing greyhounds would be retained or rehomed. It is the intention for it to happen to all greyhounds and that is what we aim towards. It would be foolish to expect that will happen immediately. It will take a plan and a large investment of money. At present, we are responsible for the rehoming of greyhounds and in the last recorded year, approximately 700 were rehomed from our own resources and we assisted in the rehoming of others. The intention in our strategic plan is that far more resources will be devoted towards greyhound welfare and specifically towards the area of rehoming. We have a problem in collecting statistics and information at the moment. It is very hard to work out exactly how many greyhounds require rehoming at any given time because we do not have precise records for dogs that have travelled to England or elsewhere or dogs that have been retained by their owners. Microchipping and the database that we suggest might be incorporated into the Act would give us that hard information and with that would come the responsibility of dealing with this problem. A commitment of this board is that welfare will be a highlight in the future. The new Bill envisages that we will be statutorily responsible for welfare. It is a responsibility that we would take seriously.