Tommy Broughan (Dublin North East, Independent)
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139. To ask the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine if he will report on the horse passport and chipping programme for each year from 2009 and for 2015 to date; if he will bring in legislation or a statutory instrument to ensure that each change of ownership is recorded on the horse passport or chip; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [28077/15]

Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael)
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Commission Regulation 504/2008, as transposed into national law via S.I. 207 of 2014 (as amended) sets out the rules in relation to the identification of equidae. With effect from 1st July 2009, it is a requirement that any equine issued with an identification document also has a transponder implanted by a practising veterinary surgeon, which creates an unequivocal link between the animal and the identification document. This legislation also requires the issuing Passport Issuing Organisation (PIO) to record certain equine identification details under a unique identification number on a database in respect of each identification document issued. This data is subsequently forwarded to the central equine database on a regular basis.

With regard to the transfer of ownership of equines, I introduced legislation in 2014 requiring all changes in the ownership of equine animals to be recorded. This Regulation (S.I. 601 of 2014) provides that the purchaser of an equine animal must complete a declaration confirming the purchase and detailing his/her name and contact details. In addition, it is a legal requirement that the purchaser, within 30 days of the transaction, submits that declaration (and the corresponding identification document, if required by the PIO) to the PIO that issued the identification document in respect of the animal. The issuing PIO is required to record the contact details of the new owner in its database and is further required to send that information to the central equine database for inclusion there. All PIOs require new owners to submit the identification document in order to record to new ownership.

The central equine database shows that a total of 172,792 equine identification documents were issued by approved PIOs in the years 2009 to date. A breakdown by year is set out in the following table.

EQUINE IDENTIFICATION