Paul Gavan (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister of State. He will be aware that my colleague, Deputy Quinlivan, recently submitted a parliamentary question asking how many prosecutions since January 2013 for the failure of owners to microchip their horses had taken place. We submitted that question after a meeting with Action for Animal Welfare Ireland, AAWI, which, the Minister of State may know, is holding a protest today at 2 p.m. outside Leinster House. The answer came back from the Minister of State's Department that there had been zero prosecutions in 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016 and 2017, which in fairness shows a consistency in the Department's approach. It has consistently done nothing to ensure the effective policing of this issue, and has consistently failed to apply the law in this area. The reply to the question stated: "Enforcement of equine identification legislation is largely undertaken by authorised officers across the regional offices of [the Minister of State's] Department", and that the Department's "policy is to adopt a fair and proportional approach in dealing with breaches of equine identification legislation". Let us consider the words "fair and proportional". In the Minister of State's county of Cork last year, 92 horses were euthanised. Is that number fair and proportional? There were 211 in south Dublin, 67 in Tipperary, 139 in Fingal and 138 in my county of Limerick. In total last year, some 1,198 horses were euthanised, and there have been numerous documented cases of disgraceful abuse and cruelty to horses, which is why there is a protest here later today.

This is not fair and proportional. This is what happens when the law is not applied year after year, and it is the result of the Department not doing its job. It is now a major problem across a number of our towns and cities across the State, which interestingly is largely associated with working-class areas of Limerick city, Cork and Dublin, as well as areas of rural Ireland, such as Tipperary, which have long been forgotten by this Government. If these horses were roaming around Montenotte in Cork, Foxrock in Dublin or the North Circular Road in Limerick, I suspect we would quickly see a different definition of "fair and proportional".

I wish to quote from The Irish Timesfrom last December:

The latest find, on Wednesday, was a decomposing horse beside an isolated walkway at Suir Island in Clonmel. The animal is thought to have died of malnutrition. The remains of seven horses were found in a field in the Knocklofty area on December 18th. The horses were in various states of decomposition, with one foal standing by the carcass of a mare that may have been dead for up to a month. Up to 14 horses were discovered in the field alongside the dead horses’ remains and they were taken to an Irish Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ISPCA) compound in Cork.

AAWI described last year as the worst for abuse of horses. As I said, it is holding a protest at 2 p.m. today and my colleague, Councillor Catherine Carey, who has been outspoken on this issue, will be there with the protestors. To conclude, the Minister of State's Department is failing, and I ask him to address the matter.