Paul Daly (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the witnesses. I thank Senator Boylan for making sure this issue was raised in the committee. Sometimes time is very limited and we all have our own priorities. As a farmer, this issue would probably not have been top of my priority list so I compliment Senator Boylan for making sure it was raised here today.

Earlier in the year, I raised in the Seanad the issue of sheep worrying. When I researched it, I was dumbfounded to find that the last report on the implementation of the Control of Dogs Act stated that while there are an estimated 800,000 dogs in the country, only 217,000 of them are chipped. This is unbelievable. That is the thrust of my questions. In any walk of life and in any instance, it is very easy to police the compliant. How do we overcome non-compliance? Reading the briefing note, I was confused by the jumping from Department to Department. They say that too many cooks spoil the broth. The Department of Rural and Community Development is responsible for the Control of Dogs Act in conjunction with local authorities, but the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine is responsible for the micro-chipping of dogs. It is frustrating for me to even get my head around the briefing note going from one Department to the other. What would be the ideal solution? How can we bring this under one umbrella? Would that improve things?

When I spoke about sheep worrying, what seemed to come to the fore was an ignorance, for want of a better word, on the part of even responsible pet owners about how their dog would perform off the leash. It was a case of "my dog is a pure pet". They did not realise what their timid, tame and loveable dog might do once it met up with another dog once it was off the leash and took on a pack mentality. Somebody suggested to me that when a person went to license his or her dog, there should be a simple theory test along the lines of the driver theory test. It would be a tick-box exercise that would highlight the responsibilities of responsible, dedicated and, for want of a better word, good owners so that a person would have to take something similar to the driver theory test to get a licence. If nothing else, it would highlight the responsibilities owners are taking on as registered pet owners.