I thank and acknowledge the Minister for being here today. I have often spoken in this House about animal welfare, particularly puppy farms and the regulation of dog breeding. One of the things that we can agree on in this House is that Ireland is a nation of dog lovers. If the Minister goes down any street, he will find someone out walking their much-loved dog. They form a huge part of our homes and our families. Unfortunately, there are far too many people in this country who are not dog lovers, and, in fact, see dogs and puppies as a commercial opportunity. They will breed as many puppies as they possibly can to try to make unbelievable amounts of money in some instances. I was just looking on one of the websites that showed the most gorgeous pups. Some of them are going for approximately €2,500. Unfortunately, there are some people who will take whatever opportunity they can to make as much money out of pups and puppy farming. Therefore, that is where the Government comes in to regulate these operations. Unfortunately, the current legislation is not sufficient to regulate them properly or to put enough safeguards in place. What we have are instances where hundreds of breeding females could be on site with no statutory limits on the number of staff required to look after them. The conditions they are in are often absolutely horrific. That is a side of puppies that people do not see when they buy them. They do not see where that puppy came from and started its life and the awful conditions that the puppy may have potentially been born into. I also tend to spend a lot of time looking on rescue Facebook and Instagram pages. These organisations do incredible work in filling in those gaps and ensuring that, where they can, they absolutely assist any puppies or any families looking for dogs who cannot be homed through normal means, or, when they are homed cannot live in a family home and have to be rehomed because the family cannot look after them. One of the things that I found very interesting when I was researching my Bill on this previously was when I spoke to behaviouralists and vets. When a dog with behavioural issues comes in to them, they can identify exactly which puppy farm that animal has come from because it is either genetic issues or issues with the environment. The environment that they were born into actually causes behavioural issues that stay with that pup, sometimes for their lifetime. I brought this Bill forward in December 2025. I agreed and was very happy to agree to work with the Minister of State, Deputy Grealish, on it. We have a timed amendment on it. A commitment was made that we would work closely on the Bill to see if we could actually come up with something through consultation and engagement, something that will help protect and regulate puppy farms in order that we have much greater confidence in them. I want to see a cap on the number of dogs that can be on site and the conditions in which they are held. Could the Minister give me an update on any progress on that? I have had one meeting with the Minister of State but unfortunately there was no progress at that point. Could he provide me with an update with the progress that has been made, perhaps in relation to the stakeholder group, the public consultation and where he sees this legislation going forward?

Sentiment score: 0.15

I thank the Minister. I appreciate his answer and clearly this is something he wants to drive strongly forward, so I look forward to working with him on it. It is a really important piece of work and I have always wondered why there was never any previous moves to strengthen it. It is good to hear the Minister is taking that seriously and I look forward to hopefully seeing the results and report from the stakeholder group because it is important it is taken into account in the legislation. We will wait for that process to follow. I want to use my last minute to raise another animal welfare issue that I am finding quite disturbing at the moment. That is the number of instances of sulky racing and the impact on the horses involved in that activity. I have been sent and have seen some absolutely horrific videos of horses. One was on the N7 recently where there were five or six cars directly behind two horses that were being forced to race and the cars were flashing their lights and sounding their horns. Those horses must have been absolutely terrified to be chased in that manner on a motorway. For the life of me, I cannot understand it. This is not the first instance; it quite frequent. There was the instance of that poor pregnant horse, Anne, that died recently following a sulky race. I just do not understand why there has not been a tightening up on these races. They have been prohibited since 1993 but we see them so often. There are certain animal welfare issues we have to stop completely. We cannot have instances where horses a being treated so inhumanely on our streets in broad daylight. There does not seem to be any stopping it. Can the Minister give me some update on what his Department is doing and what consultation he has had with An Garda Síochána on this issue?

Sentiment score: -0.06