Cathal Crowe (Clare, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

There is a nettle to be grasped. This is a major public safety issue in the context of our roads. I am glad the Garda is being proactive. No one is entitled to own a horse or another animal. I am a farmer - I inherited a farm. I would not have been able to decide, seven years ago, that I wanted horses, cattle or sheep because I did not have an inch of ground to put them on. Yet, some people believe they have a God-given right to have horses out the back garden, tethered to a pole in the local retail park or sometimes in the living room. There is no cultural or family entitlement. We all come from a family history of horse ownership. Go back to the 1950s - there were no motor cars in most Irish families. There was a horse to get you to town, home and wherever you needed to be on Sunday, including mass. Everyone has that tie to horses but it does not allow us in 2024 to unconditionally own a horse and treat it in whatever way we want. There is no developed country I can think of that has such a lax approach to horse ownership or control. I would love to see the Garda properly grasp that issue. There is no automatic entitlement. If someone wants a horse, they need to buy or lease the land and pay for a livery but there is no entitlement, certainly in urban environments, to tie horses to poles. The laws are quite restrictive but they need to be grasped and enforced.