Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael)

The point raised by Senator Ó Domhnaill is in the same category as the two paragraphs we discussed yesterday. We will examine the matter. We do not want to prosecute in an unreasonable way owners of animals who have entrusted those animals to either a professional, a family member or a friend for minding in good faith. In some cases the owners will be paying for it. Let us suppose one keeps a pony in a livery for one's son or daughter to ride at the weekend. If the horse is then mistreated or abandoned by someone who the owner has no cause to believe would do so, having taken reasonable account of the likelihood of that occurring, then I do not believe we should prosecute the owner. There should be some obligation on owners, however, to ensure that if they entrust an animal to someone else, then, at least, they take reasonable measures to ensure the animal will be looked after as opposed to putting it into a field and forgetting about it. The issue has been raised by several people yesterday and today. The point has been made that we need to get the balance right with regard to the onus of responsibility. We will examine it in advance of Report Stage.

The terminology used yesterday included "shall have reason to believe that all necessary measures in the circumstances were taken to comply with". The idea is that someone should have good reason to believe that his horse, dog, sheep or bullock is looked after and not abandoned. I will examine it.

We have undertaken a good deal of work on the broader issue of the abandonment of horses. We provided part-funding for the Irish Equine Centre to carry out some research into the level of abandonment of horses. One of the problems of the recession has been that many people during the so-called boom years in Ireland wanted to buy the leg of a horse, whether a sports horse for show jumping or eventing or a race horse. Subsequently because of dropping incomes loss of jobs and emigration many of these people could no longer afford to keep them, nor could they sell them. This brought about the problem of abandonment. We are trying to get a handle of the numbers. Some people have exaggerated the problem and others are ignoring it. We are trying to get a balanced position in terms of the problem and the best response to it. The Senator will be aware that my Department has increased funding for animal welfare organisations, some of which look after abandoned horses and donkeys, as well as dogs, cats and other animals.

On the Galway issue, I have spoken to the person who is responsible for taking horses from Galway County Council. Many of those horses are stabled in the midlands, not in Galway. To be fair, local authority veterinarians and managers are trying to do their best on this, and we need to try to help them in that regard.

From my perspective, when dealing with an abandoned animal there is always an obligation to try to rehome it if it is possible but also to take responsible decisions, if necessary, to destroy that animal if it is very sick or old. We must be practical in that respect and, where possible, find homes for animals in Ireland or perhaps in the United Kingdom where there is a sophisticated animal welfare structure around rehoming of both horses and dogs. We can tap into that but there is a cost implication also that cannot be ignored. It is about getting the balance right in respect of all of those aspects. That is the reason we have introduced codes of conduct, which we spoke about yesterday, for animal welfare organisations in return for those animal welfare organisations getting financial support from me. We must also talk to local authorities to make sure they are getting the support that is reasonable to expect from my Department in terms of issues to do with abandoned horses.

On the identification of those horses, that is a problem on which we are taking quite a hard line. If someone has a horse, it needs to be identified. If someone has a foal they must identify, micro-chip it and get a passport for it within six months of birth. If not, that horse can never enter the food chain. In other words, when that horse is put down the owner cannot sell it to the factory for €600 or €800. In terms of a record of where horses have been and the drugs they have been treated with, we cannot legally allow meat from unidentified horses get into the food chain, and I agree with that. There is an issue in terms of horses that have been abandoned without identification. It is very difficult to track down owners. If we could do that it becomes a much easier problem because we can prosecute under this legislation in terms of abandonment.

Two issues arise. First, we need simple and easy to understand legislation on the abandonment of animals, and I believe we have that in this Bill. Second, we must have a proper and affordable identification mechanism for horses but also for other animals to ensure that if an animal is abandoned we can easily track where it came from, who had responsibility for it and, in the case of horses, the commercial value of that animal at the end of its days in terms of it entering the food chain as opposed to going to the knackery yard. These are issues we are trying to get on top of, and we have done a good deal in those areas in 12 months. The horse industry is responding to that. I am trying to get the balance right in terms of giving it the time and space to do that while at the same time taking a firm position on the need for identification.