Ms Teresa Gavaghan:

I thank the Senator for the questions. In regard to the word “guidelines”, the Dog Breeding Establishments Act allows the Minister to issue guidelines. We published revised guidelines in 2019. They became effective on 1 January 2019. In the proposed amendments, we are planning to put these guidelines on a statutory basis so they will be able to help future-proof the Act and to link the guidelines clearly to the Dog Breeding Establishments Act. Local authority veterinary inspectors use the guidelines to carry out their inspections and if there are serious deviations from these guidelines, they have the power to issue improvement notices, or for very serious health and welfare issues, they can close down an establishment.