Ms Nuala Geraghty:

We get lots of phone calls about self-trained dogs. People ring up asking if we can train their dogs or saying they have just bought a puppy. We do not have the staffing resources to be able to do anything like that at the moment, so we send them through Assistance Dogs International to see if there is anybody available. It is something we could look at further down the line. It would have to be very specific and the dogs would have to be assessed. There is also the matter of insurance. Our dogs come under our public liability insurance when they are out in public places, so at least they have cover. I am not sure how a self-trained dog would come under that. They need to come under some sort of umbrella for legislation and so on. There is not a lot in Ireland so it is good to have the Assistance Dogs International umbrella to adhere to as well.

On recognition, people phone us about a lot about incidents. We had one case recently where someone was refused access with the child attached to a public building on a family day out, which was very distressing. We follow up on cases like that. The apologies come but it is a bit late when a family day has been spoiled. Ms Carr may share one or two of her stories.