27/07/2025
Ok. Let’s just get one thing straight here, the government literally legalised industrial scale dog breeding in this country via the useless DBE legislation. The government has failed to enforce the Control of Horses legislation dating back to 1996. The government has FAILED in every single aspect of animal welfare and enforcement of animal welfare legislation.
Politicians, and their ever useless ‘advisors’ or civil servants saw fit to allow industrial scale dog breeding in Ireland with only the most basic of basic regulations and a meaningless licence fee payable to local authorities. Under the same legislation, backyard breeders have free rein to operate. The sale/supply legislation is not enforced, the chip legislation is not enforced - and, according to this article the Ispca has now 9 inspectors operating in only 16 counties!
The government seems to think (never a good idea for politicians) that all it has to do is pass the buck to the Ispca (all but bankrupt) and all will be fine. Wrong! The organisation has been the single biggest detriment to animal welfare in this country in the last 40 years. Rescues still have to save dogs from being killed in the few pounds that the Ispca holds the contract for!
An organization, still desperately trying to remain relevant in even its final death throes, is never going to solve the problems of over breeding of dogs in country - not unless it’s going to revert to form and start killing tens of thousands of dogs every year. We don’t have any figures available from the Ispca for how many animals it kills annually. Why not? The department has tried to insist that rescues pts any dogs in the care of independent rescues be pts after 3 months if not homed - I know this because one department inspector tried it on with me in 2017, one year before my rusty back forced me to close DRK.
Basically, the department and the government, talk a very good (and quite convincing, to those who know no better) game, that animal welfare is taken ‘seriously’ in this country. Nothing could be further from the truth. Animal welfare is not taken seriously in Ireland, it’s barely considered at all by politicians and the government as a whole.
The fact remains, it is the INDEPENDENT animal welfare/rescues on this country that have brought about any changes in the last 40 years - NOT the Ispca. The sooner the government and the department recognize this very simple fact the better, and start providing the independent rescues with substantial funding because it is the INDEPENDENT rescues that are vital to the future of animal welfare in Ireland. It’s just a real shame that they seem unwilling to form an alliance in order to have a real voice in political circles. The Ispca and Dspca are way ahead in the game in that regard - hence over 2m of the meagre 6m given to welfare groups going to just those two parties.
I have said before that animal welfare must become a political issue, and until it does the government will continue to throw scraps at rescues or, as maybe the case, scrap the funding entirely. The department of agriculture is currently carrying out a study as to whether it’s getting ‘value for money’ by giving welfare groups grants at all! Does the department want to send animal welfare in Ireland back 30 years? That may well depend on the ‘opinion’ of some jumped up/over rated filing clerks in the DOA.
CV19 and lock downs definitely contributed to the increase of unwanted dogs - but, if the ‘geniuses’ in government hadn’t legalized puppy farming then the situation couldn’t have occurred. There was a real opportunity to ban industrial scale dog breeding in this small country, which would have kept the population of dogs under far greater control - but no, a few idiots decided that there might be potential for a huge tax income from dog breeders but, guess what, they got that spectacularly wrong too because these puppy farmers only want to deal in cash.
It was so obvious that it was all but hitting them right in the face, but they couldn’t, or chose not to see it.
So, there are 9 people expected to enforce the AHWA 2013 in 16 out of 26 counties and there’s a problem?! No s**t Sherlock - headline news!!! The Ispca mentions how many calls are made to the ‘hotline’ - not how many are actioned and the outcome. The organisation, bizarrely, took on the role of Inspectorate FOC for the department. Now what kind of stupid was that? The government can find billions of tax payers money for multiple numbers of NGOS, but can only find 6m for animal welfare? Is that how ‘seriously’ animal welfare is being taken? It can find 100m for the horse and greyhound racing industries. One of which is technically bankrupt and the other doesn’t need it.
The ISPCA said an increase in dog ownership and breeding during the pandemic has put shelters under pressure.
