Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Amendment No.61 deals with regulations relating to the census of animals. As previously drafted, if a person does not comply with an animal census, he or she is guilty of a lower, class B offence. The amendment makes it clear that persons have a period of 14 days within which to make the return before an offence can come into existence. This eliminates the possibility that persons can be deemed to be in default as soon as the census goes out.

If there is a census, that is, if the Department is collecting data on animal populations, it will give people a period of 14 days to return the census form. This gives people a sufficient period of time to provide the required information before the results are correlated. That is my understanding of this amendment.