Sean Barrett (Independent)

I join Senators Mooney and Comiskey in welcoming the Minister. I thank him for initiating the Bill and welcome his openness to considering amendments Members may put forward.

The reference to 1911 in the Bill must date back to the era of Horace Plunkett, one of the great figures in public life then. Given that we will commemorate so much in the next few years, it occurred to me that the contribution of Horace Plunkett - who had a position equivalent to that of the Secretary General of the Department of Agriculture - to agriculture and the development of the co-operative movement makes him one of the great figures in Irish agriculture.

I wish to deal with some of the points in the Minister's speech. There is a reference on page 2 to how animals are fed, sheltered and so on. I am not an expert in this field compared with the Minister but there is a view that sometimes we over-invested in sheltering. I wonder how much of it is needed and was some of it an unnecessary expense and grant driven. That is a point of referral for the Minister to which he might reply. Some people are of the view that we have invested excessively in the sheltering of animals, that much of it was grant driven and they would question whether it was strictly necessary and whether animals being in the open constitutes cruelty. We all share the Minister's opposition to animal cruelty. The regulations he mentioned on how they are fed would have the unanimous agreement of all of us here.

Page 5 of his speech refers to the legislation making it illegal to attend a dog fight. I presume that covers cock fighting as well. It was not mentioned in his speech but I presume he would regard that as equally an undesirable activity as dog fighting. It is a practice in certain parts of the country - in Border areas where those events still take place.

The protection of an animal who is hunted, exhausted, mutilated and injured or a hare coursed without reasonable chance of escape is referenced in page 6 of the Minister's speech. That brings to mind the late former Deputy Tony Gregory who laboured in these Houses on that front for such a long time and he will be remembered with affection for his interest in animal rights.

Section 16 deals with the mutilation of animals, castration and so on. Some of that is done for agricultural purposes. I presume when we come to deal with the body of the legislation it will be set out what is done traditionally and humanely as part of the normal practice of agriculture. Those were my thoughts on the Minister's speech.

The explanatory memorandum refers to dog fighting and goes back to 1911; I presume that refers to other attempts to make animals fight each other as well and that this will be covered.

The legislation provides that the sale of an animal to a young person under the age of 16 is prohibited. A point that arises here is that some people may be very kindly disposed towards animals. The irresponsible purchase of pets at Christmas leads to problems afterwards. It is just a thought and I will not going to table an amendment on this but I wonder if any qualification might be considered on that. That is referenced on page 2 of the exploration memorandum.

On page 17 of the Bill there is a reference to "throwing or casting with ropes or other appliances any unbroken horse or untrained bull" and I wonder how that would be interpreted in court. I am sure we will deal with this on Committee Stage. I do not think anybody could throw a bull or a horse and I wonder what is intended by the Minister in that provision. We support him in dealing with cruelty but it may be physically impossible for a person to do that. I do not know what a judge would make of that if it came before him or her.

The following paragraph (f) states "riding or attempting ride an animal which, by the use of any appliance or treatment, is or has been stimulated with the intention of making it buck". Does that provision prohibit rodeo? I do not believe there is any of it in Ireland. What is the Minister's intention in terms of that provision?

The Minister referred to the development of agriculture and how this legislation will protect our clean image. We probably did have an unfair image of ill-treating animals. It is interesting that the latest Central Bank quarterly bulletin indicates that this has been a very good period for Ireland agriculture, but to some degree we are getting back to where we were in 2007. Do we make the breakthrough now and continue to grow or do we drift back to the previous peak of 2007? The attempts made by Brendan Smith to develop agriculture for the 2020 plan were mentioned and they require this to be the crucial period when we do not just make up the losses since the previous peak but go on and develop, as the Government seeks to do, in China and the new markets.

There was genuine distress about the horse that had to be put down during the Aintree Grand National. It is not in our jurisdiction but we can reflect on it. I am grateful that at Irish race meetings we do not have what appears to be the cruelty and distress caused to animals associated with the Aintree Grand National. Will the Minister's provision apply to race meetings with a record of horses being killed?

There is a generational change here in that younger people are much more sensitive to the rights of animals than we are and some find much of what goes on in circuses somewhat distressful. Are circuses covered by the Bill? Close to the Minister's home, I saw children who were quite distressed at the cheetah racing in Fota. It seems that carved up pieces of hares and rabbits were strung overhead and the cheetahs went after them. What distressed the children was that the winning cheetah got to eat the prey. I should have written to the people in Fota afterwards. Inadvertent cruelty or events which cause distress to children should merit our attention.

Is badger baiting covered? I am not sure whether it is still practised very much. What goes on in Smithfield in this city has rightly been targeted by animal health people and the Garda. Racing and trotting horses on city streets and roads is a form of cruelty and moving the horse fair out of the city to somewhere in the country would at least reduce the cruelty involved in getting the animals there and is something that should be kept under review.

With regard to animal health in general, distress to the wider public, particularly in the United Kingdom on the previous occasion of disease outbreak, was caused by the widespread killing of animals and the incineration of their carcasses. What is the Department's view on the development of vaccines as an alternative to this? It did extreme damage to the international image of the United Kingdom during the summer those killings had to take place.

These are my thoughts in support of the Minister's wider objective in introducing this legislation. I am sure he will enjoy wide support throughout the House. It is very good for the country, particularly for the younger generation, to see animals being looked after and treated well and kindly as the Minister intends in the Bill and I commend him on this.