Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael)

We are addressing this issue with the next two amendments to section 43 which deals with an appeal against an animal health and welfare notice. Until now authorised officers or a member of An Garda Síochána could have taken a case against an owner or someone in charge of animals for cruelty or abuse, but they required evidence to do so. The only course of action open to them was to take a case against a person in court to try to have a fine imposed or, in extreme cases, a term of imprisonment. We have introduced the concept of an animal health and welfare notice which is a type of yellow card, a warning, but it is more than this because it is a warning with conditions attached. If a person has behaved inappropriately in respect of his or her animals, an authorised officer can visit and issue him or her with an animal health and welfare notice which will have conditions attached, with which he or she will be obliged to comply or the next stage will be a prosecution. It is a cheaper way of issuing a warning formally without having to take someone to court, which of itself is welcome.

The Senator is raising a legitimate issue, that is, if a person receives an animal health and welfare notice and believes he or she is being hard done by because of it, to whom does he or she go for an adjudication if he or she believes an authorised office has gone over the top in issuing the notice? Section 43 gives people up to seven days to appeal the content of a notice to a judge of the District Court. Given the way these things work, there will also be an opportunity for a conversation to take place between an authorised officer and the individual concerned on the onus of proof and the animal health and welfare notice. If there were to be an extreme case of cruelty, the authorities would proceed to the next stage. The point of the notice is to get a conversation going between a qualified, authorised officer who is there to advise and assist on the behaviour towards animals and how the way they are being kept should change and the owner of the animals. I will consider whether we need a formal appeals system similar to the social welfare appeals system, but I am unsure whether it would be worth the expense of putting it together and putting in place a timeframe. An animal health and welfare notice is supposed to keep people out of court rather than bring them in the other direction. I will consider the matter, but for now I am not willing to go down the road of what is being proposed and set up an independent appeals process, to which significant costs would be attached. I am not 100% convinced that it is necessary to have such a process yet.