Heather Humphreys (Cavan-Monaghan, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank both Deputies for their questions. To go back to the dogs, I am also in contact with the local authorities. They will be on the stakeholder group. There are many different stakeholders when it comes to dogs. The farming community will be represented on it.

I thank Deputy Donnelly for providing the example of Fingal County Council, which obviously runs a very good show when it comes to dog wardens and the number of dog wardens that are there. I accept that there are some cases where it is hard for one or two dog wardens to cover a whole county, especially in rural areas but no matter how many dog wardens we have, they cannot be everywhere at the same time and it is up to the dog owners. As I said, we have this fine booklet here and we are really going to push the responsibility back on the owners to make sure they keep control of their dogs, in particular as we come into the lambing season.

I will have to come back to Deputy Ó Murchú this evening on the local improvement scheme as I do not have all the information with me here.

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