Lynn Boylan (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Yes, and I am conscious that people need to get on the road and have been here a long time. I wanted to ask a few questions around the surrendering for behavioural issues, which has been accepted as one of the things that is cited with people surrendering dogs. I want to ask the Department whether funding should be provided for more rescue dog trainers? I will go back to that Amárach research where 27% of people said that one of the blockages in respect of taking a rescue dog is the fact that people are concerned about behavioural problems. I know a lot of the bigger welfare organisations have dog behaviourists and they do a lot of work, particularly guiding you to the right type of dog to fit your lifestyle. Is that something that should be considered? Especially with the Covid-19 surge, it might help us get to those dogs fit for rehoming.

My last question is around what is happening across the water with the bully breeds. Are we doing any preparation or monitoring to make sure those bully breeds are now not going to arrive in the rescue centres here? That has been flagged by a number of the rescue organisations and they are really concerned. They have already got a large number of bully breeds among their rescue dogs and they are a harder dog to rehome. Is that something we are monitoring, and have we put in place a plan to deal with it if it manifests itself?