Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael)

We have put a great deal of thought into this since Committee Stage. One of the problems is that there is no definition for normal farm practice. In fact, it changes all the time. Last January, for example, a new set of animal welfare regulations relating to poultry was introduced by the EU, and next January there will be a new set of regulations relating to the pig industry and loose sow housing. There is a set of animal welfare requirements under cross compliance which does and will change from time to time. Therefore, I do not wish to tie our hands. If we insert the phrase "normal or necessary farm practices", we will have to try to define it at the start of the legislation because instantly there would be an issue about what the phrase means. We are trying to deal with it, but we will do so at the end of section 15 when we bring the legislation to the Dáil.

One of the issues farming organisations raised with us was the presentation of bulls at marts, for example, when they are led around by a chain for the purposes of showing or presentation. We are looking at inserting a new subsection (13) at the end of section 15 which would say something to the effect that nothing in subsection (1)(a) or (e) prevents the training of an animal by persons competent to train the animal on the premises where the animal is normally kept provided unnecessary suffering is not thereby caused to the animal, the public does not have access to the place where the training occurs and any activity involved in the training of the animal is not prohibited by animal health and welfare regulations. There was a concern that the breaking in of horses or the training of bulls for presentation at shows and so forth would be considered unreasonable in terms of unnecessary suffering, and trying to clarify that was difficult. We are proposing to insert a wording along those lines when the legislation is in the Dáil. That is about as far as we can go. Otherwise, we will create all sorts of other problems around the definition of acceptable or normal farm practices. To be honest, it would cause a headache that we will not be able to solve about a series of areas.

All these amendments deal with the same issue. We have tried to deal with the specific concern about bulls with a proposed amendment which we are considering introducing in the Dáil. Outside of that, however, we could create more problems than we would solve if we accepted these amendments. Nevertheless, I understand the thinking behind them.