The Irish Kennel Club supports the introduction of legislation within the Dog Breeding industry and hopes that this will address the appalling abuses that are taking place and rid Ireland of rogue traders who place profit over animal welfare. We make the following comments in an effort to make the legislation more effective and indeed, enforceable.

1. A weakness exists in the legislation in relation to inspecting premises.   It suggests that voluntary welfare organisations could be involved inspecting business premises. It is our opinion that this requires professionally trained inspectors such as Dept of Agriculture Vets or Council dog warden services.

2. We have concerns about the policy to allow vets solely to microchip. (Based on our experience it created a type of monopoly,  that made it difficult to keep the fee affordable).

3. It should set a planning criteria / conditions for the buildings in breeding establishments or refer to other legislation that covers this.

4. Should contain a more sensible approach to fees and fines.

5. Bitches under 12 months should not be bred from.(existing wording suggests that from 4 months a bitch may be bred from)

6.  As the regulations are to deal with animal welfare, where is the room for compromise? Where exemptions are granted they should never apply to the animal welfare sections of the legislation (min. standards and inspection)

7. As almost all of these breeders deal in pure bred pedigree dogs the Irish Kennel Club should have a major role in the success of any legislation. Formed in 1922, they are the only internationally recognised body that validates and issues pedigrees in Ireland and it has, since 2006 insisted that all dogs it records are identified by microchip. Our database (retrievable) already contains over 130,000 dogs and is by far the largest database of electronically identified dogs in Ireland. It also records non-pedigree  dogs and indeed has a feature for health profiles.