Cathal Crowe (Clare, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

Much of the discussion at the European Council last week was dominated again by the ongoing war between Russia and Ukraine, which is very much a one-sided war of course. I am glad that the collective position, certainly of this House, is that Russia is the aggressor and Ukraine is the victim.

I note that last week there was an exchange of prisoners of war. In this instance I believe the Turkish Government brokered an exchange of 45 Russian soldiers for 45 Ukrainian soldiers. Why is nobody in European or global politics talking about the 16,226 Ukrainian children who have been kidnapped and taken over the border? So far in the 18 months since this war began, only 300 of them have been realised back to their parents. I have no problem with prisoner of war exchanges involving soldiers who were taken in the battlefield, captured and brought to prisoner camps. I have no problem with those types of exchanges happening. Indeed, we want to see everyone in that awful situation return home to their loved ones unscathed and certainly that needs to continue. However, it has totally dropped off the agenda, certainly in European Union. It gets condemnation and little statements are made by European leaders when they attend these summits and Council meetings, but very little else happens.

It should be absolutely at the top of our agenda as a neutral country and a non-NATO country with considerable influence both in the United Nations and European Union that these Ukrainian children, who have been disgustingly, unlawfully kidnapped and brought over the border to Russia, should be returned to their families. Based on last week's figure, if 16,226 children have been kidnapped illegally and brought over the border and only 300 returned, it leaves about 15,900 children away from their parents and being kept against their will on the Russian side of border. Ireland needs to take a position on this and we need to use our diplomatic channels, both in the European Union and with the United Nations to push this.

I also wish to raise the issue of horse welfare. The European Convention for the Protection of Animals kept for Farming Purposes is a key piece of European law and all countries are signed up to it. It sets out how we, as a member state, should have our animal welfare laws constructed here. We have pretty robust animal welfare legislation here in Ireland. We also have pretty good legislation controlling horse welfare. I have been on a bit of a crusade in the Dáil in recent weeks and I will not give up when we come back in the autumn.

The problem is that how we enforce horse welfare in Ireland is very lax. I cited an example in my constituency recently. A beautiful two-year-old mare was tethered to a signpost going into a shopping estate. She stayed there for two or three weeks. She had no water and very little to graze. Her whole ribcage is showing. The law is robust and no one comes and takes that horse away. In Ireland - I do not know how it operates in other European countries - there are various delineations as to who is responsible. If it is on public land, it is the local authority and if it is on a farm, it is the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine. An Garda Síochána is somewhere in the middle of that with an enforcement capacity. We could find ourselves in breach of the European Convention which we have been signed up to for many years.

Nobody in this country has a cultural entitlement to unconditionally own a horse come hell or high water. That is how many people see it. Their attitude is, "Sure, we can put a rope around the horse's neck, tie it up wherever we want and let it graze the proverbial long acre." That should not be tolerated anymore. Maybe it was fine in the 1940s and 1950s, but it certainly is not now. When I was growing up, I would have loved to have a pony or a horse but my family did not have land and so we did not have one. We did not knock down the front door and put a horse in the sitting room. That can be seen around Ireland. It is comical but it does happen. We did not tie it up to a lamppost. Many people here are not fit to own or mind a horse and are in total contravention of that European convention and in total contravention of Irish law but people seem to turn a blind eye to it.

I am an organic farmer in County Clare. In this day and age, we need to declare and disclose everything in this Chamber. If I did not feed or water my animals, someone would come up the driveway to my farm. There would be officials from the Department of Agriculture, Food and Marine and there would be gardaí. I would rightly be in trouble, but some people seem to get away with it. All we want to see is equal enforcement. We will end up in trouble with that European convention because we agreed to it. There is a signature from an Irish Minister and the Irish flag is on the parchment.

In terms of practical day-to-day enforcement, thousands of horses in Ireland are not chipped and not looked after. Some people feel they have a God-given right to own them and treat them whatever they want. Anyone owning a horse should either own the land on which it grazes, lease the land or pay for a livery. No one has a God-given right to tie a horse to a pole and leave it there for all damnation.

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