Annie Hoey (Labour) | Oireachtas source

Every time I stand up here, it seems like "Annie's confessions" and what anecdote I can bring to the House that is informing my political views. My views on animal rights are no secret, and that is what I will focus on. Like many in this House, I abhor animal cruelty. We have a long way to go towards living in harmony with our furry, scaly and winged friends.

We are a country of animal lovers but we are also a country that, at times, has had a poor track record in accountability for animal cruelty. There are no circumstances, personal or commercial, where it should be permissible to excuse or overlook animal cruelty. We have relatively decent pro-animal legislation here but there is sometimes woefully poor enforcement. Every so often, an image appears online of some dreadful, heinous animal cruelty such as a poor mare with its hooves overgrown. People pile on and exclaim how awful it is, and ask "whatever can we do about it?" but it is rare that the perpetrators are held to account. There is a variety of reasons for that, including tracing, but we do not hold the perpetrators of animal cruelty to account the way that we could and should do. One reason is because it takes money to do that effectively.

The Health and Welfare Act 2013 was a significant step forward for animal welfare in Ireland. The ISPCA and DSPCA inspectors are authorised officers under the Act. They can instigate investigations into cruelty. However, these charities - and they are charities - only have enough funding for a small team of inspectors making it impossible to enforce the law effectively across the country. All welfare charities have to share approximately €3 million, with the rest done on goodwill, volunteers and fundraising. My family fundraises regularly for Drogheda Animal Rescue, a small organisation in desperate need of funding to help the animals in its care. I must confess when I hear some of the eye-watering figures mentioned today in relation to the industry we are discussing, I find myself reeling, thinking of my poor mother standing on West Street in Drogheda for a flag day trying to raise money so we can feed some animals in the rescue's care. A lot of money has been invested in this industry and I posit that perhaps we need to consider how much money we are investing into animal welfare. If we compare the billions to the couple of million for animal welfare for some of the charities, it is an enormous gap. Animal welfare charities often do this work off their own bat, on the goodwill of volunteers and not a lot of State support.

We do not do nearly enough about animal welfare in Ireland, which is the Minister's responsibility. There are other things in this area we need to look at such as the microchipping of dogs. Local authorities spend a great deal of time having to chase up where dogs come from. There are issues around pounds and proper resourcing for staff in the Department of Agriculture and the Marine and local authorities are key to the full enforcement of the Animal Health and Welfare Act, the Dog Breeding Establishments Act and equine legislation. We do not need a nanny state where we chase after every animal owner - the vast majority of animal owners are good, kind people. People have spoken about animal lovers involved in the industry but better resourcing and support is needed in the sector. The people who flout the law must be held to account and I do not think that anyone would disagree with that. I am sure it is very frustrating to see people give animal lovers a very bad name. We have heard the discourse on this over the last week. Unfortunately, really serious incidents of cruelty and the abhorrent treatment of animals have come to the fore, and those people seem to get away with it. That is something that drives people's personal convictions around that.

I am aware that I have gone somewhat off track but I wanted to focus on the animal welfare issue. There needs to be tougher sentencing for those found guilty of animal cruelty. There should be higher fines and jail sentences, and, in the most serious cases, life bans on keeping animals to stop those found guilty of animal abuse from reoffending.

Many have spoken of the people behind the industry. I wanted to take a moment to reflect on the animals behind the industry for whom the Minister also has responsibility. I suggest things such as funding of the charities that are responsibility for the animal welfare that sometimes get left to deal with the knock-on consequences of this industry should be examined.We need to look at how we can fund this better to support those people who are doing really important work around animal welfare and charities. This can be quite a divisive issue and people are on both sides of it, but people who come to this with a genuine love and care for animal welfare would really appreciate seeing the Department and the Minister, Deputy McConalogue, taking that very seriously, putting animal welfare to the fore and that we are a nation of animal lovers, and that as a Government we are willing to put our money where our mouth is to ensure there is adequate funding to ensure all animals are taken care of.