Ms Martina Kenny:

No. We co-ordinate but we have had people tell us that they called the ISPCA, for instance, who told them to get in touch with the gardaí. The gardaí have then told them to get in touch with the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine. Meanwhile the animal is dying and that person is in a frenzy. When they contact us, we try to find out what is happening. We ask if they have video footage or photographs and ask them were they are located. We have volunteers all over the country and we try to send them to the location, if it is something bad, or we see if there are gardaí available. Gardaí are our key because we do not have authorised officers. We are not authorised officers ourselves. We use gardaí as our authorised officers. We should have authorised officers ourselves at this point given that we are the largest horse rescue body in Ireland but we do not.