Lynn Boylan (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I want to raise an issue I seem to be raising every week in this House, that is, animal welfare. Last night, the Joint Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine heard from the Dublin Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, DSPCA, on what needs to happen to strengthen the laws in this country, particularly in the area of dog welfare. The DSPCA pointed out that puppy farms are the biggest animal welfare problem it faces. This entire industry is based on the concept of cruelty to animals and deception of the consumer, with pups as young as six weeks old being transported across the Border and smuggled into Britain.

The DSPCA has called for dog breeding laws to be brought under the remit of the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine and for a single public database showing how many breeding bitches are on a site, who owns the site and how many times it has been inspected. It has also called for the DSPCA and other authorised officers under the Animal Health and Welfare Act 2013 to be designated as the inspectors of those dog breeding establishments because the local authorities are not doing an effective job. It is quite possible for a responsible breeder to make a living, but in Ireland there are as many as 600 breeding bitches on one establishment. That is not including the pups and the stud dogs. These animals have no socialisation skills and no genetic screening. They are being fed mechanically and, as such, they are having very little human interaction. They are then being sold into families who are left wondering why the pups have behavioural problems or they are very sick.

We are the puppy farm capital of Europe. It is not a label that we should be proud of. This can be fixed but we need proper transparency and inspections of these sites. We also need Revenue to scrutinise these establishments which are breeding up to 600 bitches, possibly, twice a year, with ten pups being sold for approximately €1,500 each. When one does the maths, Revenue is losing out because we do not have the proper transparency and no monitoring of this area by the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine.