Paul Donnelly (Dublin West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I thank Dr. Kirby for his report and I am shocked by his findings. I have a husky dog and I am beyond puzzled as to why somebody would subject an animal to this torture. I find the situation really disturbing and upsetting.

Some of my questions have been asked and I want to discuss the demand for these animals. Anecdotally, I know through social media, that one sees images of cavapoos and all these types of dogs. When I take my dog for its daily walk I see dogs of mixed breed everywhere and that situation became more apparent in the last couple of years because people got dogs during the pandemic. Now that the pandemic is over there is a sense that a lot of these dogs have behavioural issues, and I found what Dr. Kirby said about this earlier really interesting. He said that a lot of these people who paid a huge amount of money for these types of dogs now find that they cannot manage them. In addition, if people have returned to work, these dogs have become more unmanageable. Now we have nearly a tsunami of dogs that have been handed back to the animal rescue organisations or dumped. Has Dr. Kirby seen evidence of this disturbing situation? I have heard, anecdotally, about dogs being abandoned; is that prevalent among those who look after dogs?

Dr. Kirby has said that the ear cropping procedure is performed by untrained and unskilled people. Who are they? Does he mean the dog breeders or are people brought in to do the job? Have untrained people set themselves up and told people that they will perform this dangerous procedure? Is it just the dog breeders who perform this procedure?

This is illegal and I noticed the report from the Minister said, I think, that the Department is aware and supportive of a number of Garda led investigations into such activities. I have only ever heard of one case of people being done for veterinary prescriptions - I will not name them, but some people will appear in court because of the illegal use of veterinary medicines. People may contradict me but I am fairly certain that it is exceptionally rare that something like this happens, yet these are exceptionally dangerous drugs and not just to animals. If these drugs are in unskilled and untrained hands then they are dangerous to animals but they are also dangerous for human beings as well. I get the feeling that the Department places no real importance on this issue.

In terms of the breeding of strange looking dogs, I was extremely upset when I saw one quite recently. I saw a poor dog that had an enormous head, a very thin body and it was obvious that two different breeds had been combined. The head was one breed and the back of it was another breed but the poor dog could not hold its head up. Sadly, the dog was promoted online as a show dog. When I read the comments I discovered that they absolutely damned the person who showed the images of the dog. People declared that the dog was not normal looking and that it was completely inappropriate to match the two breeds. Surely such bad practice is illegal? As Dr. Kirby said, there should be standards that govern what breeds can and cannot be cross-bred. I am shocked that there are no regulations to govern this issue considering all of the animal welfare aspects.

I notice that the Department, when it sent its report, stated that aspects of artificial insemination in greyhounds may be carried out by non-veterinarians subject to licence and veterinary oversight. That leads me to ask why greyhounds are exempt. That seems illogical to me.

Much of the root cause of this matter is that the legislation, particularly for dogs, covers three Departments - the Department of Rural and Community Development, the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine and I cannot remember the third Department. The main thing that must come from this debate is that we make a difference to the lives of dogs and improve regulations. Therefore, we must ensure that one Department deals with this matter. We also need to ensure that proper resources are provided to ensure that whatever is done is safe and legal. I agree with Dr. Kirby that we need a public awareness campaign to alert people to the fact that the practice is cruel and horrific.