Peadar Tóibín (Meath West, Aontú) | Oireachtas source

I am glad that the First Stage of my Criminal Justice (Theft and Fraud Offences) (Amendment) (Pets) Bill 2021 passed here in Leinster House. I am glad to get another opportunity to discuss this important issue with the tabling of this amending legislation today as well.

Obviously, pets are very much members of people's families. Anybody who has lost a pet or anybody who has had a pet die, will tell you that it is heartbreaking. People grieve because they lose their pets and people grieve because their pets die. This is an everyday sad experience for families right throughout the country. As such, the sentence for the theft of pets should be different from the sentence that exists for the theft of an inanimate object. It should be harsher. It should be designed to deter in a stronger fashion. It should send a strong message that if one impacts so devastatingly on a family, one will have to spend time in prison as a result. I know people who have had pets stolen and yet the sentence has been similar to that for the theft of a mobile phone, a laptop or a farmyard object.

I know of a family who lives in Navan in a street adjacent to the street in which I grew up and every day their dog, by himself, used to walk up the street to the pedestrian crossing. He would wait for the pedestrian crossing lights to change and then he would cross the road. Then he would go to the local pet shop. He would bark a couple of times and the pet shop owner would open the door and throw out a pig's ear to him. The dog would scoff the pig's ear and then make its way back to the family home using the pedestrian crossing again. At the end of every week, the family used to pay the dog's tab in the pet shop. They used to make up and pay the cost of the five pig's ears that the dog consumed that week. When that dog passed, it was amazing that many of the people of Navan actually felt a sadness because this character they had engaged with on a regular basis for years had been lost. A pet is not an inanimate object. The loss of a pet must be recognised as such in the law.

In the past year, because of Covid we have seen a change in this regard. The pet theft issue has come into sharp focus for many families. Covid lockdowns have seen many families decide to get pets and as a result of this, and a number of other issues, the price of pets has radically increased. My own dog is a crossbreed between a red setter and a golden retriever. He is13 years old. We paid €50 for him 13 years ago. The same dog on the Internet now would cost €1,500. This shows that the idea of pet theft has become far more lucrative and as a result, we see criminal gangs get involved in the theft of pets.

Many people will have heard of markings made on the tarmac outside of their gates or strings tied to gates which show that these gangs are searching for these animals and returning at nighttime under the cover of darkness to rob them. There was a seizure of 32 stolen dogs in Swords in August last. Their value was estimated at anything between €130,000 and €150,000. This pointed to the organised nature of this crime. Animals are sold online, are sold for cash or are got quickly onto ferries to go over to Britain and this makes Garda efforts to break this crime far more difficult. My instinct is that we need to tackle this.

I was interested to hear, and nearly surprised at, Deputy Daly from Sinn Féin mention earlier that this was not a massive issue. The Deputy contradicted his teammate, Deputy Tully, who recognised how serious this is. I have done a lot of research on the incidence of this crime in the State. There have been 17,014 thefts of animals in the State in the past ten years. There have been another 40,000 reports of lost animals in the State. In fact, a big chunk of those 40,000 would have been stolen animals. Anybody who has been involved with the Garda will know that there is always a difference between what is reported and what happens because many people do not report these incidents. This is a big crime with a significant impact.

When I formulated the Bill in response to this crime and published it last October, I met and discussed the issue with the Dublin Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, DSPCA, and Dogs Trust. These are two organisations that work on many occasions with stolen or lost animals, and they have backed the Aontú Bill on this. They want the law to reflect the gravity of the crime when it comes to the theft of pets.

In the past 12 months there has been a jump of 16% in the number of animals reported stolen to the Garda. Unfortunately, the number of charges or summons brought against people who are involved in this crime is low. Only one in five of these crimes sees a charge or summons. This points to the fact that there is massive underfunding of the Garda around the country.

We often hear from the Government that we have the highest ever level of gardaí in the State and that we are back up to the 2009 figures, before Fine Gael hammered the garda numbers in the State, but the truth of the matter is, if one takes it by ratio of garda to population, we are still not back up to 2009 figures. On a per capitabasis, the number of gardaí is still fewer than the 2009 level. In my constituency of Meath, whole swathes of the county are absent of Garda stations. Of those towns that have Garda stations, many of the gardaí are only working part time. Ratoath is the biggest town in the State without a Garda station. I know of a section of Meath which is 30 miles wide by ten to 15 miles long where on a Sunday there are five gardaí on duty. If two of those gardaí are taken out for an arrest, it hardly leaves enough gardaí to cover the phones in that part of the county. It stands to reason that gardaí are unable to bring the charges and summons necessary to better tackle this crime. What we need also is for the Government to put its money where its mouth is to make sure that Garda stations are functioning, that they are open and to make sure there are enough gardaí to be able to do the job in hand.

The key element of this, and one of my worries, is that we will have a lot of motherhood and apple pie when it comes to this issue, that people will speak positively about the need for us to get tough on this crime but we will not see any action.

That is why I am asking the Government to accept this amendment and the Bill I have put forward and expedite it through the House in order that we can give some comfort to families who are dependent on their pets.

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