The Irish Horse Welfare Trust are running a campaign called A VOICE FOR HORSES on their website www.ihwt.ie and in the public domain. The IHWT are the largest advocacy group for the most vulnerable animals in Ireland today, those horses which have fallen off the bottom of the horse industry’s value chain.The IHWT campaign asks for the Animal Health and Welfare Bill in Ireland 2010 to be developed and progressed into legislation as a matter of urgency.
The public and political controversy which arose during the passage of the Wildlife Act Amendment Bill which outlawed stag hunting and the Dog Breeding Establishment Bill which provided regulation for puppy breeding led to defections from the government ranks and was seen as diverting energies away from more pressing national budgetary concerns. Another Animal welfare bill of any sort will thus now be viewed in government buildings as too radioactive to handle in the life of this government and will probably be “held over”.
Minister Smith gave statement of intent in the Dail in March 2010 to have the new Animal Health and Welfare Bill ready to pass through the Dail before end 2010 as was outlined in the programme for government 2007. The consultancy phase for this Bill was completed in 2008 in which Veterinary Ireland, IHWT, ISPCA, Dept of Ag and Dept of Environment participated.
This Act will update and amend all existing legislation concerning farm and companion animals, equines, exotics and provide a single set of provisions to ensure welfare and health are defined,regulated and protected. Animal cruelty cases are still dealt with under the Protection of Animals Act 1911 while penalty guidelines for animal cruelty are currently referenced to a 1965 amendment of that 1911 Act. It will stipulate increased penalties for offenders, describe new offences of mutilations such as ear cropping, tail docking and offences of omission or neglect as understood under modern parameters of “the five freedoms of animal welfare”.
There exists an anomaly whereby control and regulatory responsibility for food animals is the remit of the Dept of Agriculture while Dogs and other companion animals are the responsibility of the Dept of the Environment. Horses fall into both which in practice amounts often to a legislative neither. Minister Smith wants correctly to bring all animal legislation into the Department of Agriculture which is where Veterinary, Animal Husbandry, Health & Safety and Disease Control expertise all reside already. This consolidation of responsibility for animal welfare into the Dept. of Ag is identified by groups like the IHWT as perhaps the most important part of the Animal Health and Welfare Bill.
This catch all bill will bring Ireland’s animal cruelty policies, penalties and listing of offences into line with the UK’s Animal Welfare Act 2006 which is robust enough to prosecute owners of hungry horses for neglect, dangerous dog owners for derogation of responsibility and puppy breeders for overcrowding or inhumane management. Yesterday in Lewes Crown court a woman from East Lewes, Sussex was fined 10000 pounds and baned from horse ownershpip for ten years for five counts of horse cruelty. One mare had to be put down as her hooves were so badly overgrown that she knuckled forward on her hind fetlock joints. A former Crufts winning Breeder was found guilty of keeping 92 dogs in crowded and dirty conditions in Aidenshaw,UK last week. An offence which can lead to up to six months in jail under this tough 2006 legislation.
Groups like the IHWT, frustrated by Ieland’s outdated legislation and laissez faire attitudes to animal welfare expect an Irish bill which would similiarly empower local authority inspectors, stiffen penalties and deterrents to irresponsible animal ownership.
Horses dont have a single defined route to market or a single function. There is no certainty of outcome at the end of the demand curve. Horse owning and breeding is a meritocracy because they are not a food animal in our culture but may be all of athlete, investment, hobby, pet and luxury depending on your point of view. A horse may be all of those at diferent stages of it’s life, it’s usefulness and it’s value. A horse’s value proposition is a chain that a horse will rest at or fall off at different phases of its ability or health. The value chain may have started off as a dream for an owner several years ago but end now as a nightmare for a hungry horse ina field somewhere this winter.
The most vulnerable of those horses at the end of that value chain are the ones that would benefit from a robust legislative policy on Animal Health and Welfare. It IS all about the economy at the moment. But government have a responsibility to legislate for society as well as the economy. Societies are judged by how we treat our most vulnerable.
