Pádraig O'Sullivan (Cork North-Central, Fianna Fail)
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I thank the Minister of State for coming to the House to discuss this issue. On the northside of the Cork city in my constituency we have had a spate of animal welfare issues in recent weeks, many of which have made national headlines. I also raised this issue here last year as a Topical Issue. Last year, we gave over €6 million in funding to charities to police this for us. Despite that investment, on the ground in Cork city we are seeing more and more of these incidents of animals being mistreated and in certain cases ending up dead or abandoned in sites or on the side of the road.

It is really worrying because we are investing more money than we have ever given to these charities but the figures speak for themselves. I will take the Minister of State through a few responses I received to parliamentary questions in last few weeks. Between 2020 and now, only two people have been fined for animal mistreatment, with fines of €5,000 or less. There is a second fine open to the authorities, of up to €250,000, but nobody has been fined to that amount in the last five years. A number of people have been imprisoned for up to three years over various years but we are talking single digits. The same is true for the number of people disqualified from owning animals but there was a spike last year and 27 people are now disqualified from owning animals, not just horses, nationwide. That would indicate to me that the trend definitely is moving in the direction whereby more of these incidents are happening and that mistreatment of animals is becoming more common.

The difficulty is that we rely heavily on animal charities in particular. I must give a shout out to My Lovely Horse Rescue Cork, which does Trojan work. It is expensive to do the job it does. We are often talking thousands of euro to save a horse and nurse it back, care for it or whatever the case may be, and in a worst case scenario often disposing of the carcase or, unfortunately, having to euthanise a horse. Those things are very expensive and taxing on charities. The difficulty I have is that we actually have loads of legislation in this space. An Garda Síochána has powers, the local authorities have powers and the Department of agriculture has powers but all I see in every case that we come across is a failure of all those authorities to actually co-ordinate and to give a co-ordinated response. In the most recent case we had in Glanmire all the parties I have just mentioned were notified that an animal had been abandoned on a private site but over the few days of finger-pointing about whose responsibility it was the animal, unfortunately, died. It was up to the private landowner in that case to dispose of the carcase. The landowner was uncontactable for a while and did not realise the horse was even on his site but it still fell upon him to dispose of the carcase and bear the expense. In all this I wonder where the owner of the horse was. It is difficult for the authorities to identify who the owners are because horses are not chipped. There is a requirement that horses would be microchipped but it is just being blatantly ignored.

I lodged a Private Member's Bill yesterday and I ask that the Dáil give it consideration. Maybe the Minister of State could bring this back to the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage, Deputy James Browne, and the Minister for agriculture, Deputy Martin Heydon. I ask that a designated official be appointed in each local authority so we do not have a situation where one must go to the Garda, the local authorities or a Department of agriculture official. If somebody is tasked with the job of inspecting licences and ensuring the animals are microchipped then I believe we can get around the kind of mess we have at the moment. I thank the Minister of State.

Hildegarde Naughton (Galway West, Fine Gael)
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I thank the Deputy for his question. I will be raising the matter with both Ministers. I have a response here on behalf of the Minister, Deputy Heydon.

Neglect or causing unnecessary suffering to any animal is unacceptable in our society and the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine is fully committed to the ongoing promotion and enforcement of high animal welfare standards. The Department continues to enforce the law in this important area, as do An Garda Síochána, the Customs service, the Irish Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals and the Dublin Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. The Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine works very closely with these bodies.

The Animal Health and Welfare Act 2013, introduced by the Department, brought all farmed and companion animals, including leisure, sport and working animals, under a single legislative framework. The Act provides a modern framework for applying standards in the area of animal health and welfare. Since the Animal Health and Welfare Act 2013 came into operation in March 2014, 182 individuals have been successfully prosecuted. The programme for Government provides a commitment to prioritise equine welfare and to build on existing inspectorate supports across the country, ensuring a consistent approach to dealing with horse welfare.

Deputy O’Sullivan will also be aware that the Department commissioned Professor Patrick Wall to carry out a root and branch review of our equine traceability system in recognition of how fundamental robust traceability is to ensuring equine welfare. Professor Wall was invited to make representations that would enhance the integrity and security of our traceability system, and deliver improved accountability which in turn delivers better welfare outcomes for our equines. Professor Wall has consulted with stakeholders across the whole equine sector and his report will be published shortly.

Under the Control of Horses Act 1996, local authorities may take a range of actions with regard to equines, including prohibiting horses in certain areas, the issuing of licences and the seizure of horses in contravention of the Act. These powers can be used in respect of straying horses, which include horses put on land without the owners' permission, including public land. Local authorities may also prosecute offenders. The Department provides funding to local authorities as a contribution towards the costs incurred by them in the operation of the Control of Horses Act 1996. The number of unwanted horses being seized by local authorities reached a peak in 2014 and has declined significantly since then. All legislation in the Department is kept under constant review, including the Control of Horses Act 1996 for which plans for replacement legislation are advancing. The aim of this replacement legislation is to simplify and clarify procedures in the Act, in terms of seizures and disposal of horses.

The Department undertook a stakeholder consultation in 2023 on the control of horses legislation, with submissions sought by November 2023. Four submissions were received and will feed into the legislative process. The Department is fully committed to supporting sustainable initiatives in line with the programme for Government and the Working Together for Animal Welfare: Ireland's Animal Welfare Strategy 2021-2025. As part of this commitment the Department will continue to support urban horse projects nationwide, which can foster community leadership and education in responsible horse ownership for young people. From 2015 to date the Department has spent over €2 million on urban horse projects. There are currently eight live projects and in late 2023 the Department hosted a seminar dedicated to the promotion of the urban horse projects nationwide. The seminar encouraged collaboration and the exchange of ideas and best practices among local authorities and other stakeholders with a view towards enabling more projects to be successfully established.

Pádraig O'Sullivan (Cork North-Central, Fianna Fail)
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I thank the Minister of State. In my introductory remarks I did acknowledge that the Government has done its bit in providing money for the charities. I note that the Department's response the Minister of State read out refers to this legislation is constantly being kept under review. Obviously I welcome this but I genuinely believe that we have more than enough legislation. It is there already. There are reams upon reams of legislation. Be it the Control of Horses Act or the Animal Health and Welfare Act, the powers are already there. All I am asking for is enforcement. The Department's response states that these "powers can be used" with regard to stray horses, or that "Local authorities may also prosecute offenders". We should be putting the local authorities to the pin of their collars: they must prosecute people and they must seize horses that are in distress or in an emaciated condition. They have to do this. It is incumbent on us to ensure that. It is currently a merry-go-round - is it the Garda, the local authority, the landowner or the Department of agriculture? That is what is happening and it is just a merry-go-round at the moment. If we are to be sincere about this and serious about tackling the issue then the only way to do it is to give responsibility to an individual within the local authority, preferably somebody we can actually ring on a Monday morning or Friday evening to say there is a stray horse below in the field or there is a stray horse out on the road and we are seriously concerned about this animal's welfare, and that we can actually talk to a person. At the moment people are being pushed around from pillar to post and animals are suffering.

I wish to read into the record that the total number of seizures of animals in 2020 was 819. On the face of it this looks quite good as it has decreased every year up to 2024, when we only seized 288. On the face of it this actually looks like this is happening less but I can tell the House that from my own constituency's perspective more and more of it is happening. The figures lead me to believe that the authorities are just doing less and they are relying more on charities to pick up the slack. Perhaps the Minister of State will take back to the Ministers my suggestion about the appointment of officers into the local authorities.

Hildegarde Naughton (Galway West, Fine Gael)
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I thank the Deputy. I will relay back to the Ministers what the Deputy has said here. In dealing with breaches of equine identification legislation the policy is to adopt a fair and proportionate approach. Authorised officers engage with keepers to ensure that they understand their responsibilities and, where potential breaches of the legislation are identified, they generally provide an opportunity for non-compliant keepers to rectify the position within a specified timeframe. Last year €6 million in funding went to 101 animal welfare charities throughout the country under the animal welfare grant programme.

Just over €3.4 million of that was awarded to charities involved in the care and welfare of horses. The Department also operates a confidential animal welfare helpline through which members of the public can report incidents of animal cruelty or neglect for investigation. I will relay the Deputy's message to the Ministers.