Ms Mary Hurley:

We are lucky to have a member of the working group on dogs with us this morning as Paul Geraghty was on that group. The Deputy will have seen that there was the announcement this week in regard to the working group, which forwarded its report to Government. In regard to dogs, the proposal is around strengthening the enforcement piece, better dog ownership and people being responsible.

The Department of Rural and Community Development has responsibility for the dog breeding establishments legislation, including fines. Arising from the review this week, we will be doing work very quickly and the Minister has signalled her intent to increase on-the-spot fines and also fines arising from convictions in regard to dog control. That is a piece of work that we will be moving forward very quickly.

In terms of the resources around this, in particular for the local authorities, one of the announcements this week was in regard to dog wardens. The Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine, the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage and the various stakeholders are engaging to advance the putting in place of those wardens as quickly as possible. I know the Deputy had a parliamentary question down this week. We are in the lambing season, so it is very important that we move forward very quickly on this issue. It is all hands on deck now in terms of implementing those 15 recommendations from the report. Mr. Geraghty might wish to comment.