Seán Ryan (Dublin North, Labour)
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Question 148: To ask the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government the position regarding the steps taken by his Department to ensure that local authorities deal humanely with the welfare of animals they impound; and if there is a programme in place for neutering, spaying and micro-chipping the animals and ensuring that as many animals as possible are re-homed.

Dick Roche (Wicklow, Fianna Fail)
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The Control of Dogs Acts 1986 and 1992 place statutory responsibility for dog control on local authorities. The implementation of the Acts is vested in local authorities who have power to appoint dog wardens, to provide shelters for stray and other dogs, to impose on-the-spot fines for several offences and to initiate prosecutions. Local authorities may also make by-laws regarding the control of dogs within their functional areas.

The Control of Dogs Regulations 1998 require the owner or other person in charge of a dog to ensure that the dog at all times wears a collar bearing the name and address of the owner on an attached plate, badge or disc. The regulations contain penalties for non-compliance with this requirement or for defacing or rendering illegible the above particulars. Those arrangements followed consideration of all practicable options for ensuring identification of dogs, including that of micro-chipping, and are being kept under review.

While there is no specific programme for the neutering and spaying of dogs, my Department has provided funding in recent years to the Irish Blue Cross, a volunteer-operated charity, for its subsidised neutering programme for dogs of needy pet owners.

The number of dogs being destroyed decreased from 27,848 in 1997 to 16,598 in 2004. The number of stray dogs being re-homed each year increased from 4,681 in 1998 to 7,939 in 2004.