Ms Lisa O'Connor:

No. Many people do not know they can report this. When people do report it, the outcome always depends who is in the Garda station. A lot of times they will ask for evidence, for example, if there is any CCTV footage or how does the person know that the dog has not just wandered down the road. In those circumstances, it is not even logged on the system. We need get a handle on it.

I was speaking to a garda who lives not far from me. She is a sergeant. She mentioned educating gardaí who take phone calls from people on how to log the information on the system. This is because much of the time the details are logged on the part of the system where stolen mobile phones and lawn mowers are logged. It is all over the place.