Ms Martina Kenny:

On local authorities with which we work, we do not go looking for funding from them but we try to establish a relationship with them. Dublin City Council has been very good to us and, amazingly, bought us our first horse van as it recognised that we needed van to help them as well. We will invoice Kilkenny County Council for certain things that we have done for it but we do not get an awful lot of money from anybody. All of our money basically comes through the public and some companies. We are very much a fundraising-type of organisation, which is awful because we must spend so much time thinking how we can pay a bill rather than give consideration to the issues that we really need to think about. That is a full-time thing for us. Even though many of us have jobs, families and whatever, we give our all to the organisation. No matter what, we never panic that we will not make things work or worry about closing down. I am one of the co-founders, and Ms Deborah Kenny is another, but we have always said that we will never blackmail the public. I mean that I have seen other rescue organisations say that they are at risk of closing their doors because they have not got enough money. We do not do that and have always found a way. It would be great if we did not have to worry about the financial problems that we encounter on a daily basis. We are here for the animals and we want change.