John Gormley (Dublin South East, Green Party)

I thank the Senator for his amendment. As I indicated previously, however, I will ensure the draft regulations are subject to consultation with all the interested parties before I sign them into law. It is important these regulations are consistently applied throughout the State. Giving the power to local authorities to have their own local conditions or guidelines would not assist in ensuring uniform and effective implementation of the legislation. A requirement for local guidelines would also place an unnecessary burden on local authorities to develop local guidelines and standards. Such broad latitude where each local authority could implement its own guidelines would only create confusion which would result in a lack of clarity on the standards to be implemented by breeding establishments throughout various local authority functional areas.

A number of questions arise in this context. What would happen if a dog breeding establishment straddled two local authority areas? Could it choose the less onerous of the two sets of guidelines? We come across this repeatedly and we are trying to address it in the White Paper. Would we want operators to engage in location shopping whereby they would set up a dog breeding establishment in a local authority area with less onerous standards? These are practical difficulties that I see in the amendment proposed by the Senator.

In its report, the working group stressed the importance of having regulations that are very clear and enforceable. Providing for local guidelines would undermine the national approach envisaged by the working group and which is provided for in the Bill. The very fact we are introducing this legislation will help dog breeding establishments. There is no question that reputational damage has occurred and it is only by having a national standard that we can progress. I understand the thinking behind the Senator's amendment but there would be practical difficulties in its implementation.