Lynn Ruane (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I am going to speak briefly in support of Senator Ó Domhnaill's amendment. A zero tolerance approach makes sense. I do not know why people would be allowed to race dogs again if they were caught giving the dog any amount of cocaine. Four months is not enough but I understand why we are putting in restrictions rather than completely banning people. There is an incentive to dope dogs if we do not have zero tolerance.

As someone who has worked in the drugs sector for long enough, I know every trick in the book of people trying to get drugs out of their system before they have to give their weekly urine sample. Cocaine takes two to four days. A dog could be doped with cocaine and the drug would be gone from its system within two to four days. A person could increase the activity of the dog to allow it get the drug out of its system much quicker. If an individual has taken cocaine for three, four or five days in a row it can often take up to a week or 14 days at the most. I doubt it is very different for a dog. If a dog can have cocaine out of its system within two or three days, that negative test can come back straight away. It can come back after running the dog around for a whole day so the drug works itself out of the dog's system. If there is not zero tolerance, we will continue to have dogs being given cocaine because it is too easy to get away with it.