Éamon Ó Cuív (Galway West, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I presume the Minister would agree that an outright ban is not warranted. The logical extension of that would be, because we would not be killing cattle and so on, our ending up in a place that would destroy the economy. We should instead ensure that each type of farming is done in a humane way.

I listened to what the Minister said about tail docking and such practices. I take it that the measure being introduced will ensure the benefit outweighs the damage caused. For example, everyone would argue that dehorning of young cattle is anti-cruelty because the horns of the cattle can be dangerous to man and beast. It is allowed, therefore, despite it being an unpleasant task. Two people having a harmless row is often referred to in the Irish language as Cath na mbó maol, which when translated means the battle of the two dehorned cows. Cattle without horns do not do any damage. It was recognised in older times that dehorned cattle are a lot safer than horned cattle. While these are issues that need to be teased out, the Minister is on balance going in the right direction.

I understand that the farming organisations have raised issues in regard to the inspectorate and welfare organisations. This matter can be teased out further on Committee Stage. Having spoken to the Minister's officials, whom I thank for their briefing, I recognise that there is a need for appointment of authorised officers in urban areas. It is reasonable that authorised officers be appointed where there are no departmental veterinarians or infrastructure. Unless someone proves otherwise, what the Minister is proposing to do appears reasonable.

I support the introduction of a graduated system of fines, including a warning, an on-the-spot fine followed by a more serious fine. I understand that the ultimate sanction will be indictment. However, everything must be proportionate. It is important that we do not provide in legislation for prosecution of minor offences where an easier way of addressing the offence is available. I like the idea of a summary or on-the-spot fine which is equivalent to a parking ticket. Where a person is guilty of more serious transgressions the matter can be taken further. That is reasonable.

I listened with interest to what the Minister had to say about the eradication schemes and money. As I understand it, what is currently provided for will continue but that where a person cheats the system he or she will not be entitled to money. Also, any person who induces a disease or who tries to interfere with a test would not be entitled to compensation from the State. I would have thought that was obvious. I agree with it.

The Minister spent a great deal of time speaking about the codes of practice, which is an interesting concept. Legislation when enacted can be a blunt instrument in the courts. If I understood the Minister's officials correctly, we are now providing for three levels of law, namely, primary statutory law, statutory instruments and the codes of practice. The first two are viewed as the letter of the law in the court. In regard to the code of practice, a person who wishes to take a prosecution would have to find some element of the law, either regulation or primary law, under which he or she could prosecute the offender but that in prosecuting under that section of the Act, the code of practice could be taken into account by the judge. However, it does not have the force of law on a word for word basis in the same way as do the other two aspects. A judge could take it into account when informing a judgment as to what the statutory law means. It is worth a try as it makes a great deal of sense. As I stated earlier, one of the problems in drawing up legislation is that it is hard to foresee every circumstance. I presume the judge looking at the code of practice would look at the common sense meaning of the word rather than the literal meaning of the law and that is the idea.

It is important codes of practice are simple. I agree with the basic approach being taken. I am sure we will have an interesting debate on this issue on Committee Stage. However, this measure will be of assistance. Some of the farming organisations have expressed the concern that this would have a big impact on farming. I presume they will be involved in drawing up the codes of practice and that the codes will basically be good farming practise and a common sense approach to looking after animals well. This is worth discussing. If the choice is going down the codes of practice route or statutory instrument route the code of practice route provides more common sense flexibility.

Ministers are provided through primary legislation with the power to make regulations. I am not against that because the world has become a lot more complicated. If we did not do so all the Acts of the Oireachtas would be getting wider as people require more and more detail. We live in a much different world than 30 or 40 years ago. I believe that now that we have a good committee system it should become the norm rather than the exception that Ministers would refer proposed statutory instruments to the relevant committees with whom they should be willing to debate them prior to their being signed off in this House as regulations. What normally happens is that the Minister signs the regulation, following which there are 28 days during which the Dáil may object but the reality is, given the number of members of Government versus the Opposition, that does not happen.

I recall that on the first occasion I introduced regulations under the Acht Teanga I encountered some difficulty. On the second occasion, I brought the matter before a committee. We debated the matter at length during which time Members came up with some suggestions and I made some amendments.

An interesting point was that when I put the regulation into effect nobody raised a question after that. It is a change. We talk about Dáil reform and people think that reform involves big issues and would mean a spectacular change. However, a great deal of reform that would make practical differences, if we were serious about introducing it, would involve changes of practices that people outside this House would not consider major, but they would make the Oireachtas much more meaningful and would give us better laws. The idea of testing everything with other Deputies, irrespective of which party they are in, would allow them to play the devil's advocate and then one could tease out whether what one thought was a great statutory instrument was as good as one thought it was. If we could change the way we do things and were involved in the full legislative process, we would get much better results from our legislation.

As the Minister is probably aware, I do not like the guillotining of the Committee Stage debate of a Bill because engaging in such debate, namely, the teasing out the detail of a Bill, and not so much the Second Stage debate, is what this House is about. That is what we are here to do and what we were elected to do. We should be teasing out all the possible things that could go wrong with legislation and coming up with the answers.

I was interested in reference to prosecutions and the issue of disqualifying a person from keeping animals. That is a reasonable provision. I was very taken with the humane provision, which is good proposed law, that would facilitate a farmer who, because of a mental issue or some other consideration, could not look after his animals which were important to him. A halfway house arrangement would be provided to allow the farmer to keep a few animals under supervision and with some support. In real life things are not black and white. People are not all bad and there are circumstances that apply. I like when humanity is brought into play. Most of us find out at our clinics that the average punter who gets into a bit of trouble has issues of his or her own that one would have to take into account. One would often think that the person did not really mean to get into that position and rather than coming the heavy it would be much better to see if one could work with him or her. I like that such a provision is in the Bill where such an arrangement could work. One the other hand, if a person acts maliciously and cruelly towards animals, that person can be banned from having animals.

There has been a huge emphasis on the whole issue of farming because of the lobby that is in place. This issue is very important in regard to domestic animals. We must recognise the cruelty that can be inflicted on domestic animals. Many people love their animals and spend a fortune on them but there are also situations where the opposite is the case. There is also the problem that arises at Christmas annually when people are given presents of animals and then they are abandoned shortly afterwards. Another issue that arose in recent years was that people bought horses or ponies, then they could not afford to keep them and they were abandoned. That is a major issue. We will no doubt tease it out in detail when the Bill is going through the House. It is reasonable that a person under the age of 16 should not be allowed own such an animal. If the owner of a horse is aged between 16 and 18 what is the legal position if one had to pursue the owner? What is the legal position about pursuing a 17 year old owner of a horse if he or she is not acting properly towards it? Presumably the Minister has an answer to that question but it is an issue we can tease out.

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