Aisling Dolan (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank Senator McGreehan for raising this issue. I offer my sympathies to the family of Nicole Morey in Limerick. It was a tragedy that the family and everyone else will never forget. It is shocking that we hear these stories. We spoke about this issue last year with regard to a child who was attacked, which Senator Malcolm Byrne mentioned. I appreciate the work that has been done to date. After that incident, there was a real push to get the stakeholder working group together. That brought together two different Departments. It is unusual that responsibility for the ownership and monitoring of dogs falls under two different Departments. The Department of agriculture issues licences, has a database and deals with the microchips. There is then the Department with responsibility for local authorities and heritage, which is a separate Department. The Department of Rural and Community Department is responsible for dog ownership. That is three different Departments, which leaves a lot of space for things to sometimes go awry.

How do we support joined-up thinking on this issue among the three different Departments involved? I appreciate the leadership of the Ministers, Deputies Humphreys and McConalogue, in coming together to set up the dog control stakeholder group. I am curious about why and how it has to deal with those three different areas. I know the group will focus on dog control but we have to look at the issue of banning dangerous dog breeds.

I grew up on a farm and owned beautiful pets and lovely dogs.In our countryside, along with farmers being the guardians of our landscape, many of them rely on dogs for working dogs as well as pets. As a pet, a dog can be a friend for someone older or younger and can mean so much to him or her. That is particularly the case for many older people who live alone in rural areas. Sometimes, the pet is the only thing they see day in, day out. However, people who live in rural areas are usually cognisant of the responsibilities that lie with being dog owners. Last year, I went around looking at dog kennels for sale in specific pet shops. I could not believe that the kennels did not come with locks on their doors. The shops explained that dogs were not locked in now and so on. Maybe people have fenced-in gardens, but sometimes they do not. Farmers love the topic of fencing as well. It is important that householders have fencing around the areas where they keep their dogs so that the dogs cannot leave. We always have to ensure that our dogs are locked in or inside our home at night-time.

The Minister is considering a number of matters. According to her press release in March, she has trebled on-the-spot fines for dog control offences and provided nearly €2 million for dog warden services. I link closely with Galway and Roscommon county councils. I live close to a beautiful bog landscape that I love. There is a great deal of bog activity at the moment, with people getting ready for the turf and so on. People abandon pets in bogs. Many times, I have taken a dog home and connected with our local dog warden only for the dog warden to tell me the shelter is full and accepting the dog will take time. Aside from what the Minister has already done, we should review our support for dog wardens and how we fund dog shelters. We need to know what funding has been allocated to linking up the databases so that dog wardens can access them via tablet, for example. We now see gardaí using tablets. It is not groundbreaking technology. The wardens would be able to link into the Department of agriculture’s database and their own monitoring databases held by local authorities. This would be difficult, as it would involve three agencies and their IT control systems, but there should be a way for a dog warden on the street, who is the Minister’s representative in enforcing dog control measures and legislation, to access that sort of technology and make an instant decision on a fine because there is no microchip or licence. We would be supporting dog wardens to do that. We can talk about putting legislation in place all we like, but if there is no enforcement and the dog warden does not have linked-up databases and cannot make a decision on the spot, where are we going? We are going to talk about this, we are going to have the legislation and it will sound great, but we will not have enforcement. With enforcement come changes in behaviour. We know this. We have seen it with penalty points on our roads. Changes in behaviour lead to safety for people on our roads. Enforcement of this dog legislation and supporting our dog wardens by ensuring that they can make on-the-spot decisions mean safety for families. Families have suffered horrific dog attacks and loss of life.

The Minister is using her leadership to try to drive change, but I wish to highlight the issue of enforcement. Support our dog wardens. Give them the resources and dog shelters they need and allow them to link up their databases with the Department of agriculture’s. It is not an easy process, and nothing like this is easy across three agencies, but what does she suggest?