Andrew Doyle (Wicklow, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I did not interrupt the Deputy when she was speaking. I am sincerely trying to bring this industry into focus and into shape. I will be meeting the chair and board members of the IGB this week to go through its action plan and to see to its immediate implementation.

Italy has banned the export of dogs to China and so on and while we could do that too, unless every country we export to that has good welfare standards adopts the same approach it will not be effective. We cannot control what happens in the UK on our own, but we can work with it and re-emphasise the need for it to have stricter controls on how animals exit the country. If every country in a community, such as the EU 27 plus the UK, has the same ring of steel around their exports, then no dogs will end up in countries such as China or Pakistan. We cannot do that unilaterally. We need co-operation and that is why we need to engage with the international greyhound forum to make sure that becomes a reality.

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