Jackie Cahill (Tipperary, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I want to go back to microchipping. For me, this is at the hub of the issue. Mr. Shine answered a question there and he said that the vast majority of the horses that are impounded have no microchip. He said he was happy enough and I took a rough calculation of the figures he mentioned for registration as regards the number of foals that are born every year and I reckon that only 80% to 85% are being microchipped. Therefore, we have roughly 15% of each year's horse population that is not being microchipped and that is the 15% from where all our problems are coming. If there is irregular movement of horses out of the country, it is happening out of that 15%. Mr. Shine was talking about the database and all the rest but we have an incomplete database when we have that level of non-participation.

Cross-compliance obviously forces other herdowners to comply with registration but do we have any stick we can use to force owners of mares to microchip a foal when it is born? I know the resources to go around and inspect this would be colossal but is there any weapon in our armoury that we can use to try to move to 100% compliance? If we had 100% compliance, we would be an awful long way down the road of solving both our cruelty problems and our neglect problems. In a case of trespassing, for example, if the animal is traceable back to an owner, it would greatly increase the onus on the owners to look after the animals. To me, the hub of the issue is microchipping. While Mr. Shine has said that we have come a long way from where we were, we are still a long way from a complete database and I could not have confidence in a system such as that.

If we go back and compare this to the situation with bovines, we would be laughed out of every market in the world if we only had 85% compliance in that sector, or in the sheep sector or any other agriculture sector for that matter. Horses are legally entering the food chain as well, that is a reality. Unless we have plans to increase the percentage of the horse population that is being microchipped, as Deputy Penrose said, we will be back here in five or seven years' time with the same problems.