Lynn Boylan (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

The strengthening of the legislation leads on to my next point. Dogs Trust has been before the committee previously to discuss the online sale and supply of pets and the need for information on that to be correct. If that were lined up as well, someone trying to advertise dogs would be linked back to where the dogs were bred.

It is the local authorities that license dog breeding establishments. They give out the licences. That is my understanding. One of the problems we see repeatedly is getting access to those dog breeding establishment licences and getting access to the information on them. I carried out an exercise whereby I contacted all the local authorities about this. I went onto their websites first. In lieu of legislation, in the very short term, should the Minister responsible for local government tell the local authorities they need to have the dog breeding establishments on their websites, easily accessible, and listing the number of breeding bitches as a first, very basic step? That would then allow people to check if the information is in the advert in the first place.

I have more questions concerning local authorities and inspections. If Mr. Dowling wishes to write to the committee in response to any of them, that would be great. I understand the inspections are carried out by local authorities. Are the local authorities resourced for that? Is there a scattergun approach where some local authorities are very good but some are not? Even though I am more likely to get a response than a member of the public, I have found it really hard to get information from local authorities about the number of inspections that have been carried out, the number of findings and whether a DBE has been closed down. I am interested in hearing Mr. Brennan's view of the responsibilities that lie with local authorities in this area.