Danny Healy-Rae urges more dog wardens amid sheep attacks
Danny Healy-Rae addressed the committee on dog microchipping and recurring sheep attacks, urging stronger enforcement and more local dog wardens to protect farmers' livelihoods. He questioned the accuracy of the national microchip database and said the system needs to be tightened.
Microchipping figures
Danny Healy-Rae cited figures showing about 800,000 dogs recorded on the microchip database over the last six to seven years. He warned that deaths are not generally notified, that his data runs back to 2019, and that the recorded total may not reflect how many dogs are actually alive or in the country.
Legal requirement and enforcement
He noted that microchipping is a legal requirement for all dogs and that dog wardens and local authorities are meant to enforce the rules. He argued enforcement is patchy in practice, pointing out that Kerry appears to have only one or possibly two dog wardens for a very large county.
Impact on farmers and lambing
Healy-Rae described repeated attacks on sheep, especially in parts of Kerry and South Kerry, and warned this is a worrying time as lambing approaches. He said farmers are losing lambs and income when dogs attack or disturb pregnant ewes, and that landowners and farmers are being left exposed.
Calls for action
He called for tighter controls on microchipping data, more active enforcement on dogs off leads, and increased resources for dog wardens. He said farming organisations and local meetings have highlighted the problem, and the committee must act to "put our house in order" and ensure farmers are protected.
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Chairman, first of all, thank you, each of you, for coming in here today, I suppose. Is that what he said, that there's 111 doms microchipped in the country? Every year. Every year, they're... Also, how many doms is microchipped in Ireland? I don't have exact figures on that, Deputy. I have figures over the last six or seven years that show there's about 800,000 or so. 800,000. Whether they're all still alive, you know, there's 800,000 chipped on the database, but deaths are generally not notified, so I don't know whether they're all still alive or still in the country. To me, that doesn't seem very tight. It's kind of loose. That needs to be tightened up, and I suppose, like Deputy Fitzmaud has said, and, you know, we've been after a problem. It's a mountaineer county, a lot of Kerry, especially South Kerry, and we have a constant flow of attacks on sheep, and it's coming up to lambing time now, and farmers, it's their income, it's their livelihood. And it's a very worrying time for farmers, and this has happened quite a lot, and it has to be stamped out. So, it's not a legal requirement yet to chip dogs, is it? It is, yeah. Under the microchipping of dog regulations, all dogs in the country have to be microchipped, whether they were born before 2015 or after. So, it's a legal requirement? It's legal, yeah, for everybody. And it's the dog wardens and the local authorities are supposed to follow up on that. I don't know how many dog wardens we even carry. I think we've only got one. And I suppose if we're two, that's the very most. And Kerry is a massive county in itself. And so, we're only a god-eating in comparison to Cork. It's the biggest county in Ireland. And, I mean, so clearly there isn't enough observation or knowledge of what's going on or what's really there. And that's not good enough for farmers. And, indeed, like Deputy Fitzmaud has said as well, all the farming organisations, they've done their level best. They've highlighted it here inside. They've held local meetings. And we all know several people that their sheep have been lambs killed, and sheep torn. And then when there's an attack, and even though they might not attack one sheep because they're heavy in lambs, they lose the lambs. And it's really harmful. And we clearly, as a country, we must do more. And if it has to be that we need, that we have to have more dog wardens, so be it. I mean, I'll agree with Deputy Fitzmaud as well. There's a lot of fellows going around, walking, and leaving out dogs. And if some farmer walks up to them, they'll eat the cheek in impotence they give. And it's not good enough. And they'll leave him off. And now we have more walkways and all that. And they leave him off in these walkways. And they're inside in some forest field where they're not supposed to be. And every man owns his own patch. And he's responsible for it. And he's depending on it. And we need to do more than that. And when I hear even 800,000 dogs in the country, and, like, we are no dogs. I too. There may be even that many now. Even when we're going back seven years, that might be down to 600,000. So that wouldn't be a true reflection of the amount of dogs that's in the country at all. No, Deputy, I suppose, just to say as well that that would only be over the last few years. So there could be dogs, older dogs, that are still alive. That wouldn't have been counted. That would have been shipped before 2019, which is when my data goes back. So there could be older dogs. So I suppose it's fair to say that we don't really have accurate data on exactly how many dogs there are in the country. And you're right. We do need to kind of improve our information. Well, from the figures... I was only just talking about the figures that you had, about 800,000. There could be... There certainly is a lot more dogs than that. And there could be older dogs. But in that 800,000, some of them could be... Actually did. Yeah. There they are. So there's no way, like, that we're thrusting to 600,000 dogs in the country. And dogs will have to be microchipped and we have to protect farmers' rights to their livelihoods. And that hasn't been happening. And we as a committee here, we're very thankful to come in. We have so much information. But we know that we can see now what the problem is. There's no... We haven't enough dog gardens and there isn't enough observation going on of the dogs. And it's not right that we're letting farmers expose like that and landowners. So we'll have to put our house in order and ensure that the farmers are protected. Thank you very much. Thank you. Deputy Art? Yeah.
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