2026-07-09

10. Deputy Aisling Dempsey asked the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine if he intends to improve the inspection regime of dog breeding establishments. [52127/26]

Does the Minister intend to improve the inspection regime for dog breeding establishments in the near future?

I thank Deputy Dempsey for raising this really important issue. It is something I am passionate about. In order to bring a coherent approach to dog control, policy and legislative responsibility under both the Control of Dogs Act 1986 and the Dog Breeding Establishments Act 2010 transferred to my Department last year. That was part of the agreement in the programme for Government. It was a wise move. I supported it during the talks on the programme for Government. Responsibility was spread across three Departments, which was challenging. As my Department has responsibility for animal welfare, also having responsibility for the control of dogs makes a lot of sense. As the Deputy will be aware, in both cases, local authorities retain responsibility for all operational and enforcement matters. Inspections of dog breeding establishments are carried out by my Department and by local authority dog wardens. All registered dog breeding establishments undergo an annual inspection. Additional inspections, which include unannounced inspections, are carried out according to a risk assessment. My Department also introduced an updated dog breeding establishments inspection form to create uniformity when conducting an inspection of a dog breeding establishment. This updated form is used by both my Department and local authorities and will be kept under review in light of key developments in the areas of animal welfare and the law, having regard to the practical lessons learned from conducting inspections. On 19 May this year, I introduced draft legislation, the dog breeding establishments Bill 2026, to Cabinet to update the existing regulatory framework for dog breeding establishments in Ireland across three key areas: welfare and breeding; sales and record-keeping; and administration and enforcement. The Bill was approved for priority drafting and will be referred to the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Agriculture and Food for pre-legislative scrutiny. For the first time, dog breeding establishments will be legally required to employ a minimum of one full-time staff member for every 20 breeding bitches on the premises, ensuring animals receive proper daily care and attention. There are other measures in the Bill I am happy to expand on in my supplementary response.

I thank the Minister. I appreciate that answer and his commitment in this area. It is obvious it is something about which he is quite passionate. It would be really beneficial if we could get some kind of timeline on that now. We met with Dog Law Ireland and other advocates. I met a lady from my own constituency that day called Alma. It is not about people like that. There are excellent dog breeders out there. There really are. Alma spoke about bottle-feeding puppies through the night and nursing the bitches back to health when there were any issues. It is not those people I am talking about here today. It is the dog breeding establishments with which we have serious issues. The updates to that legislation cannot come quick enough for those dogs' physical and mental safety. I am delighted to hear there are annual inspections. In terms of the local authorities, I know there was €2 million in funding last year and perhaps a commitment, although I will not prejudge, in the upcoming budget for more dog wardens. Those teams will never be big enough. They have so much to police and so much to inspect. I would like to ask the Minister about that.

I thank Deputy Dempsey for those points. First of all, to reassure her, the constituents she has met and the dog breeders across the country who do dog breeding well have nothing to fear from this legislation. This is to stop bad practice by any bad actors who might be in this for monetary gain, who do not care about the dogs and who are doing it to exploit any vulnerability that is in the law at the minute. Our job as legislators is to make sure we have tight and robust measures here. It was definitely an area that I felt needed tightening up. I am sure good dog breeders like Alma, who the Deputy referenced, are not doing the kinds of practices we are talking about here. There are measures we are seeking to bring in. In answer to the Deputy's question around timelines, it will be as soon as possible. I have asked for it to be listed as priority legislation for the next term. I have engaged with our colleague, Deputy Aindrias Moynihan, Chair of the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Agriculture and Food, to deal with the pre-legislative scrutiny in tandem so that we try to get this Bill through as quickly as possible. It is really important that we do that. As well as the point around staffing rates and beyond, the limit and the cap of one litter per year will prevent repeated breeding, which is obviously very bad practice. There will be a limit on how many Caesarean sections a breeding dog can have and a cap on the number of litters in her lifetime as well. These are all really important measures.

I thank the Minister for his commitment to getting this through as a priority. I am really delighted. I am sure many people will be delighted to hear that today. The caps he talks about are all very welcome. They are more or less in line with what people like Dog Law Ireland and advocates like my constituent Alma want. The one concern is around the number of bitches that can be in any one of these breeding establishments. We heard stories about 300 bitches being in one establishment with staff having to wear ear defenders because of the noise. The effect that has on dogs is very worrying to really trustworthy and good dog breeders. That might be considered as well.

We will get an opportunity to discuss all elements of this through the five Stages of the legislation when I introduce it to the House and get it cleared. I have not made a decision on the cap yet. I still have an open mind. I have advice from the Attorney General. There are challenges around it that we will get to discuss through the detailed phases of the legislation. Are we comparing like with like in terms of the sizes of premises, such as the difference between a garage and a warehouse? There are challenges and there could be complexities in the law in that regard. However, measures are being proposed in the heads of the Bill. We have 17 heads already, so it is quite a detailed draft Bill. We have measures in there that will naturally limit how many dogs somebody can have, as well as the capping in terms of staffing and how many litters the dog can have. These are all measures we will work through. The Deputy mentioned funding. Obviously, I work closely with the Minister, Deputy Browne, with his responsibility over local authorities and the dog wardens. However, through my Department, I fund animal welfare charities to the tune of over €6 million, which is a huge increase on the €2.4 million that was paid out to them in 2020. We have continuously invested more in the area of animal welfare and in this area.