Lynn Boylan (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I will not delay people any longer because it is one of those nice moments when we are in agreement. I thank the Minister of State for her comments. I am heartened to hear of the work that is going on and that the elements of this Bill are under consideration by the relevant Departments.

I would caution about the information on microchip compliance. While we know that the law states one must have a dog microchipped, the problem is that a lot of people are not aware of the need to update that information. While we heard from Senator Byrne about the obligation of this staying with the breeders, it is the breeders' obligation to re-register that in the owner. Members of the public are not aware either of the need to update the information if the animal dies. There is a simple example from Australia where a person gets a yearly text message from the database the microchip is registered with, just to ask if any information needs to be updated about the dog. There are simple ideas out there we can adopt. As Senator Ó Donnghaile has said, we only have to look up the road to show how effective it can be to link the microchip to the licence.

I will not labour the point any more other than to commend this report. I ask that people who have not already read it do so. I thank all Members for their comments tonight and for their generous comments about my own work. I extend a special thanks to the members of the Oireachtas Joint committee on Agriculture, Food and Marine. Senator Lombard might be a country bumpkin but I am a Dub and the only woman on the agriculture committee. Agriculture and fishing are huge areas of policy and a lot of work gets done on the committee. In fairness, when I came to that committee and said that we also had responsibility around animal health and welfare, including canine welfare, all of the members of that committee facilitated the hearings and the extensive work that was done. We worked together. Everybody participated in those hearings and co-operatively we produced that robust report. It again shows how important it is that on certain issues we can put politics aside when we all have a single purpose, and we can actually produce really good work.

I take great heart from the debate tonight. As I have said, we just want to see this legislation enacted. The Minister of State has said that the area is under review. Because there are so many areas that need tightening up I fear it could delay this legislation further. This Bill can make a change overnight; it is not complicated and it is not controversial. I encourage the Minister of State to maybe expedite this legislation while that review work is ongoing.