Chris Andrews (Sinn Fein)

Today we had a very strong dog welfare presentation in the audiovisual room. I thank everybody who came to it. I thank Working Animal Guardians, Greyhound Action Ireland, Greyhound Awareness Cork and Ban Bloodsports, who all attended and were part of the presentation. Working Animal Guardians, WAG, and five other groups took a judicial review against the Government to have an appeals process for the XL bully ban recently, and there still has been nothing from the Government. Where is the review and when will this decision be made? Dog owners are in limbo.

Some of the facts presented by the groups were mind-boggling and staggering. I did not realise that 5% of all racing greyhounds are dead by the time the race is over or shortly after. In 2024, 202 dogs died racing. Some €19 million of taxpayers’ money is going to the greyhound racing industry every year. In 2019, “Prime Time” highlighted that 6,000 greyhounds died because they could not run fast enough. The death rate is as high today as it was then. They highlighted at the presentation that traceability is an absolute shambles. In March 2021, there was a commitment that there would be four care homes set up for greyhounds, but only two care centres have been set up since then. In 2024, those two care centres got €291,000. Do you know how many dogs they rehomed? Thirty-six dogs were rehomed. This means the cost of rehoming a greyhound by these care homes works out at €8,000. It makes the bike shelter look like good value. This is where €19 million in greyhound funding is going. This funding needs to be investigated independently. I ask that there be an investigation and that we have the Minister in to discuss it. You could not make this up. Rescues do a lot better. There were reports recently that a kennel in Roscommon was raided and 50 dogs removed because of the shocking condition they were in. This was reported in the newspapers. Greyhound Racing Ireland knew about the shocking conditions six months ago. This needs to be investigated again but not by the Department; we need an independent investigation into this. There are so many issues we are failing dogs and animals on.