Martin Kenny (Sligo-Leitrim, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I thank the witnesses for their presentations. One of the things that always strikes me in regard to the equine industry is that we always have people from Horse Racing Ireland and various sectors coming into the committee and we are usually talking about big prize money, very valuable animals and so on. Yet, at the other end of the scale, we have this situation which is causing huge problems. In every country, and in some it is a little worse than in others, there are situations where horses are being abandoned and there is very poor animal welfare. Those issues need to be dealt with in the context of an industry which we always talk about in terms of value and the great resource it is for the economy but in which we find this dirty backyard that nobody wants to look at or clean up.

There has to be responsibility for this across the board. The variance in economic value that was mentioned from one end down to the other is really what is at stake here. Deputy Cahill referred to traceability. There seems to be practically no traceability in the vast majority of such situations. There is tagging and full traceability in cattle farming, for example, and we nearly know the DNA of the animals. If, however, a horse jumps in front of the car and causes an accident, as was mentioned earlier and which has happened on numerous occasions, nobody is accountable. That is one of the very serious parts of all of this. The Control of Horses Act has to be dealt with and it needs urgent reform. This needs to happen as quickly as possible and we need to try to make progress in that regard.

As for the various agencies that are doing work in this area, the local authorities in particular are very stressed. I know from talking to the veterinary officers in a couple of counties that the question as to where the resources to deal with this situation will come from is an ongoing problem. There are never enough resources. We have had recent incidents in various parts of the country in regard to the risk of inappropriate horsemeat getting into the food chain. Horsemeat is appropriate in some cases, and is being managed and is going into the food chain, correctly so, although we do not have a tradition in Ireland of eating horsemeat and it is for export. The problem is there are shenanigans going on and this really needs to be looked at closely. It is clearly open to such abuses because there is no traceability, which is the core of the problem. While there is no traceability, it will remain a huge problem.

There is a traditional horse fair in Mohill, County Leitrim, where there is bartering on the street corners and people buy and sell horses, and that has been the tradition. When the marts came into being in the late 1960s and early 1970s, everything changed and it forced traceability and put things into a different place. Something will have to be done in regard to how horses are traded and moved, particularly in regard to the traceability issue. This is the key issue we have to get right. No one should own a horse unless it is clearly traceable, has its passport and is microchipped. It is an enforcement issue. Rather than putting the energy into trying to clean up the mess, more energy should go into finding the problem before it becomes an even bigger problem and then trying to deal with it.

The issue raised in regard to dogs is a similar one. Approximately half of the dogs in the country are licensed, or perhaps less than half. That is clearly the problem. We then have issues of sheep being killed in various places and nobody knows who owns the dogs. I have come across a cross-Border problem that affects County Louth in particular.

We talk about Mr. Trump wanting to build a wall on the border; some sheep owners would like to see a good fence going up because they do not know where the dogs are coming from that are killing their sheep. That is a problem because, as far as I am aware, the existing database is supposed to be an international one but it is only fed into by one jurisdiction. That is another problem. We need an all-Ireland database for both horses and dogs. Work is required in that regard to improve the situation.

The core of the problem is that we have an industry that is worth a lot of money at one extreme and yet has a very big problem at the other extreme. Given the resources available to the industry, it does not make sense that the problem has gone unchecked for so long. There needs to be a diversion of some of the available resources. As Deputy Penrose mentioned, €80 million has been invested in the industry and yet we see this problem. That does not add up. It does not logically make sense that it is happening. There are issues concerning culture and how matters are dealt with, but there is also a sense that somehow or other we can allow bad behaviour under the guise of culture and that is okay. It is not, and that needs to be spelled out. It is just not on. It will take a firm hand to go in there and deal with that but it needs to happen as quickly as possible. Where amendments are needed to the Control of Horses Act and to various other pieces of legislation we must bring them forward as quickly as possible. That said, resources are the biggest issue. If resources are put in place we can deal with much of it very quickly.