Mr. Finbarr Heslin:

To be clear, a microchip is an inert piece of hardware and has only one piece of information on it, that is, a world-unique 15-digit code.

It is worthless to have that in a dog unless it is registered.

As to the details the Senator is looking for, we are mandated under the Microchipping of Dogs Regulations 2015 to register, store and verify 13 different pieces of information associated with that ownership - the dog's colour, date of birth, sex, breed, markings, etc. If Mr. Savage decided in the morning that Dogs.iewas going to integrate totally with our system, the owner would only have to type in the microchip number and verify it. The system would then write the ad detailing from the independently verified details what dog was for sale.

A point that is often missed in this debate is that the quality of the data on databases is important. In Ireland, we have predominantly chosen to use veterinary certified data. As a vet, if I falsify data on the registered database, I could lose my licence. That is a price I am not willing to pay, and few people are. In the UK, owners can register data and there is no imperative to do it properly and give the dog's future owners any protection. If the ad is run through our system, it means that a vet somewhere has certified that he or she has seen proof of ownership, a picture ID and a bill recording the address. This was always the problem in the old days - a dog being picked up at the back of a pub car park and a mobile number that would ring out after the transaction had been finished. That cannot happen. If there is a contention subsequent to the purchase of the dog, the details on the database can be released to the new owner. That is the GDPR consent for publication. Those details have been certified by a vet under the regulations. If there is anything wrong with those, the vet is the one who has to answer why. It has been difficult to circumvent the Microchipping of Dogs Regulations 2015 because it is so robust. This is one of the things we can bolt onto it to provide massive consumer protection and improvement in animal welfare, given that we will have good data.

What saddens many people involved in animal welfare - the Senator has campaigned on this matter - is that it is actually easy to get this right, to legislate or regulate, or to agree a voluntary code of practice among online platforms. Our disappointment is that there is not public awareness of what verification involves and means. Our verified ads do not even get prominence on dogs.ie. We get a little tick. Someone would need to go looking. We all know that, when it comes to the purchase of a pup, emotion trumps any form of will to do due diligence. As soon as someone sees the picture or the puppy, he or she is sold.