Mr. Paddy Mahon:

I thank the Chairman for the invitation to appear. Our paper is taken to have been read but I will address some key points of it, hopefully not repeating what Mr. Blake has said. Local authorities are responsible for the control of horses under the 1996 Act and the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine is the primary agency for animal welfare under the 2013 Act. The number of horses seized over the past number of years is down but the number euthanised, while it has gone down, remains unacceptably high. Our experience in local authorities is that we deal with nuisance horses that pose danger to the public. They are generally in urban areas, on public lands and sometimes on semi-private lands. We hear on "AA Roadwatch" about loose horses on our roadways. We encounter them regularly in public spaces and on local authority housing estates. Generally, local authorities seize and impound the horses by contract. It is expensive and dangerous. Our response is generally reactive and firefighting. Most of the horses that are seized are not microchipped. The maximum subvention at present is €375 per horse if it is euthanised and €200 if it is rehomed. There is no subvention if the horse is reclaimed. The cost to the local authority would be between €500 and €1,000 per horse.

Equine welfare is the main subject of concern to the committee and we feel that it is inextricably linked to the control of horses. We have a number of proposals for improvement in our submission. We should try to deal with the causes rather than the symptoms of the problem. We believe there should be vigorous enforcement, hopefully involving a multi-agency response or a task force for each county or region, which has worked in other areas in our experience, comprising local authorities, the Department, the Garda, and other relevant agencies, targeting specific areas of concern. We believe there should be greater recourse to local by-laws, especially in the designation of exclusion zones. The review of the Control of Horses Act needs to be prioritised. We believe that the potential for a service-level agreement between local authorities and the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine would be beneficial. We believe that one is in place between the Department and ISPCA, and between the Department and us in other areas. We successfully operate service level agreements in partnership with other agencies and Departments to achieve common goals and shared visions.