Joe McHugh (Donegal North East, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I welcome this Bill and commend the Minister on his proactive stance in this area. There have been five years of consultations so the Bill is welcome.

I want to focus on the authorised officers section. In his contribution, the Minister outlined the automatic authorisation of customs officers and gardaí, with potential for veterinary surgeons to act in that fashion. The possible involvement of NGOs was also mentioned and I would like to focus on the involvement of the ISPCA, a reputable organisation that deals primarily with domestic animals and horses. It will see 3,000 cases this year alone, primarily involving domestic animals, with farm animals making up less than 1% of cases. That shows how far animal welfare has come in the last 20 years, when statistics showed 70% of ISPCA work was spent on farm visits. Given the system of departmental inspections now in place, better farm practice and a general improvement in animal welfare on farms, that number has declined dramatically.

It is important that reputable non-governmental organisations, NGOs, are involved, and the Irish Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, ISPCA, has a proud track record of preventing cruelty. It assists pet owners and demonstrates to them how to treat animals. We have, however, a resources issue. It is ridiculous that an ISPCA inspector who is called out to a housing estate where there has been a report of a malnourished dog must wait for a garda to confirm the report and authorise the ISPCA inspector to remove the animal.

This raises the question of resource allocation. If a garda must make a decision between responding to the report of a crime or calling out to confirm a case of animal cruelty, which will he prioritise? What consideration is there for the animal's welfare? If a dog is severely malnourished, the important thing to do is to get the situation sorted as soon as possible and to remove the dog. There are two problems: a resources issue and consideration of animal welfare. If we put animal welfare at the forefront of the legislation, efficiencies and dealing with the situation will be the priority. It is also important to allow ISPCA inspectors a degree of responsibility and authorisation.

I have spoken to the Minister about this before. Some in the farming community fear the inspection regime will be too wide but if we look at the track record of the ISPCA and its practical involvement in domestic animal welfare, we can see a commonsense approach. I heard of a recent example where an ISPCA inspector was called out for a kitten that had cat flu, which required the ISPCA officer to inform the Garda. Three gardaí arrived to check for themselves that the kitten had cat flu. This madness can be addressed in a common-sense way to ensure the ISPCA inspector, who would know when a kitten has cat flu, can intervene at that point. This is potentially a win-win situation and in these straitened times of cutbacks and fewer gardaí, we must look at their prioritising involvement in such situations.

I have concentrated on one aspect and I will not go any further into the issue of cross-Border co-operation. The Minister knows my thoughts on that and he has worked proactively with his counterpart in the North. From a veterinary inspection point of view, there are win-win scenarios in North-South co-operation, so I welcome the Minister's intervention with his northern counterpart and wish him continued success in that. There are financial benefits to such practical co-operation.

I commend the Minister on putting animals at the centre of this Bill on a day when the Minister for Children and Youth Affairs has put children at the heart of the Constitution. When we are talking about animals, we must make them the priority.

If there are means available to us to make it more effective with the animal's welfare in mind such as through intervention, there is a practical solution with respect to authorising inspectors to arrive at commonsense solutions.

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