Maureen O'Sullivan (Dublin Central, Independent)
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314. To ask the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine if he will ensure that all records and information of greyhound microchipping is available to the general public; if he will instruct the Irish Greyhound Board and Irish Coursing Club to release records of compulsory microchipping of greyhounds into the public domain, to ensure transparency in the industry with regard to animal welfare; his views that there is no reason for said information to be secretive or exclusive to certain bodies; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [12878/15]

Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael)
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The Irish Coursing Club (ICC) is the authority responsible for the registration and identification of greyhounds. The ICC is subject to the general control and direction of Bord na gCon under section 26(2) of the Greyhound Industry Act 1958. Bord na gCon is the statutory body with responsibility for the improvement and development of the greyhound industry, greyhound racing and coursing.

On 20^thFebruary 2015 I signed into law SI No 63 of 2015 ‘The Microchipping of Dogs Regulations’ which governs matters relating to microchipping of all dogs for the purposes of identification.

SI number 63 of 2015 requires that all dogs be both microchipped and registered with an authorised database before the age of twelve weeks or before they are moved from their residence. This applies to newborn pups from September 2015 and all dogs from March 2016.

This legislation also requires that a dog identification database operator is to provide a service for reunification purposes for the immediate retrieval of information by appropriate persons e.g. persons dealing with animal welfare matters and authorised under the Animal Health and Welfare Act, dog wardens, local authority personnel and members of An Garda Síochána. Data protection legislation also applies regarding the release of data into the public domain.

The ICC has informed my Department that as part of its greyhound identification programme it proposes to provide the microchipping service for all greyhounds in Ireland as per ‘The Microchipping of Dogs Regulations 2015’ including the requirement to make data available to appropriate persons as outlined above and in keeping with data protection requirements.