Annie Hoey (Labour) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Green Party. I commend my colleagues on bringing this issue to the Chamber during their Private Members' time. I feel very strongly about and wish to speak to a number of issues raised in the motion, as I have done in my past two years in the Chamber, including the treatment of animals in the racing sector, the need to better fund our animal welfare organisations and the care and standards in need of improvement in our agrifood sector.

While the motion is comprehensive, I did notice a gap in one area of animal welfare matters in Ireland. The motion does not mention the seven zoos and wildlife parks we have, which are responsible for the care and preservation of rare and endangered animals.We assume they are a guaranteed safe space for animals. However, it has been my great misfortune over recent months to learn this is not so and it is not always a guarantee.

The motion states that animals are entitled to the widely acknowledged five freedoms reflected in the convention. These are freedom from hunger and thirst, freedom from discomfort, freedom from pain, injury, and disease, freedom to express normal behaviour and freedom from fear and distress. I will outline some of the concerning breaches of these freedoms.

A number of months ago, I began a series of meetings with former and current staff members in Dublin Zoo. Through this engagement I have been made aware of a number of breaches of these freedoms for animals in Dublin Zoo, the most detailed accounts of which have recently been issued to me by a whistleblower via a protected disclosure. Regarding the animal welfare and management failings at Dublin Zoo, I have been told by the whistleblower there have been serious welfare issues, near misses and safety and management concerns. The whistleblower states that having exhausted all options in Dublin Zoo's grievance procedures, which failed to act on their concerns, they feel they have no option but to expose their experiences and what they have witnessed at Dublin Zoo.

In the motion before us there is reference to an animal's right to freedom from pain, injury and disease. I want to speak about a zebra named Kildare who did not have this freedom. She died after complications during a tooth extraction procedure on 2 December 2020. She was darted twice and suffered from capture myopathy. She was kept alive even though staff requested the animal be euthanised. The tooth was extracted and the animal was severely paralysed when she came around from the aesthetic. The animal was left to recover overnight. Having experienced no change, the animal was going to be hung overnight in a harness even though she was severely paralysed. One staff member pleaded at the end of the second day to end the animal's suffering. Management and the veterinary team were planning to leave her hanging in a harness overnight despite being severely paralysed. Staff were extremely distraught after witnessing the zebra's treatment and felt like they could not raise concerns for fear of reprisals. Kildare was featured on the television series "The Zoo" on 26 June 2022.

I also want to speak about Maeve, a giraffe who died last month. Staff were informed at a meeting by a team leader in March that Maeve was on watch. This means she was on a quality-of-life assessment. Maeve was not observed consistently or assessed to determine her quality of life. No quality-of-life assessment was filled out between March and her death on 28 June 2022. Staff had to watch her lay and slowly die while kicking out to trying gain her footing. This should have never happened to Maeve or her keepers. After her death and post mortem, staff were called to a meeting and offered counselling. They were then told to delete any videos of Maeve and how she died. This is another attempt by Dublin Zoo to intimidate and conceal wrongdoing and animal welfare problems. Before Maeve’s death, I saw photos of her gaunt frame with her bones sticking out. She was very clearly an unwell animal.

I also want to speak about Harry, a silverback gorilla. We all know about Harry as he was one of the most famous attractions in the zoo throughout my childhood and into recent times. Harry was a silverback male gorilla who died on 29 May 2016. Keepers consistently raised concerns leading up to his death. There were daily reports that his behaviour was abnormal and that he was losing weight and condition. Keepers repeated asked for a vet to examine him. Eventually a vet was called. He died shortly afterwards. This had an adverse effect on the rest of the troop. This was one of the hardest stories for me to hear from the many staff I spoke to as the pain in their voices over how Harry was treated in the run-up to his death was unbearable. I have sanitised the details as I do not think I can read all of them. I saw the photos of Harry at the end and he suffered greatly.

I have seen footage and photographs of the animals I have mentioned and the visible, unnecessary suffering they were left to endure is unfathomable. Tá mo chroí briste. This is not what care and compassion for animals is supposed to look like. This is not the standard of care that we, as members of the public and Parliament, have come to expect from Dublin Zoo, a much-trusted and beloved public institution.

The pain of sick and dying animals is not the only animal welfare issue detailed to me in the protected disclosure, or by the former and current staff I have spoken to. There is a major breach of guidelines with regard to missing animals. In the motion before us there is reference to an animal's right to freedom from fear and distress. In November 2019, two crested macaques went missing and were presumed dead. In February or March this year, a white collared mangabey went missing, also presumed dead. Despite staff raising the issue that they had not being found, management have not looked thoroughly for these animals or raised the public's awareness in the event that a member of public were to encounter them. Staff raised their concerns about the two missing macaques saying there were 24 and now there were only 22 in the group. The team leader quoted the curator as stating there were always 22, insisting the keepers could not count to 24.

On 21 May, a citron-crested cockatoo escaped from its aviary. This is a critically endangered species and since its escape there have been no efforts to locate the animal or raise awareness among members of the public in the hope that if they were to see such a bird, it could be returned to the zoo. The zoo has failed to follow any protocol to retrieve the animals, or to inform or warn the public in the hope of retrieving the animals or to prevent anyone sustaining an injury from one of the missing animals.

What I have raised today is only a snapshot of the stories that have been shared with me about failings in animal welfare in Dublin Zoo. I have pages and pages of testimony from current and former staff. I was on the phone until very late last night hearing more stories. I do not have time to go through them all. These events are not from the far past. They happened quite recently, as I have outlined. I thank all those who have taken the time to speak with me and inform me of these issues over recent months. I particularly commend the whistleblower who had the bravery to come forward with a protected disclosure to me, trusting me to help shine a light on this most serious of animal welfare issues in Dublin Zoo. These are people who care deeply for the animals and who have put themselves in the firing line in work to raise their concerns. It is a pity their voices, the only ones the animals in their care have, have fallen on deaf ears.

It is only appropriate to reference the words of the whistleblower as I finish. The whistleblower has exhausted all their options to date and cannot in any good conscience wait until their serious misgivings result in the death of a colleague or, as is already happening, the unnecessary deaths and mishandling of endangered animal species in Dublin Zoo.

I thank the Green Party for tabling the motion. I hope I have shone a light on something that is extraordinarily serious. I will engage with the relevant Minister, Department and committees in the coming days on this issue on behalf of the whistleblower. I wanted to raise the issue in the Seanad first.