Legislation is needed before the summer season to ban dogs from farmland and hills, according to an Irish Farmers’ Association (IFA) representative.
John Joe Fitzgerald, who is the vice-chair of Kerry IFA, is part of the association’s ‘No Dogs Allowed‘ campaign. Launched over a year ago, it is calling for stronger laws on responsible dog ownership and control as a result of attacks on sheep.
However, the west Kerry farmer told Agriland that there are “still dogs roaming around the place”.
He said there are concerns in Kerry that a proposed ban on dogs on Blue Flag beaches in the summer will cause more owners to bring their pets onto farmland and hills to exercise.
Fitzgerald explained that in July 2020 he had to confront a man who left his dog off the lead in the middle of his hill sheep flock. He also said that farmers had been verbally abused by owners when asked to take their pets off farmland.
Dogs on hills
During the 2021 August Bank Holiday weekend, Fitzgerald said that a farmer told him that there were four dogs going up Mount Brandon every hour.
“He said that some of them were on leads, but when they got halfway up they were left off the leads again. So he said that nothing has changed.”
The Kerry IFA vice-chair said Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine Charlie McConalogue explained that Minister for Rural and Community Development Heather Humphreys was currently examining the legislation relating to dogs.
“We’d like it to be dealt with before we go into another summer season when things will get out of hand again,” Fitzgerald stated.
The farmer explained that extra dog wardens will be needed to enforce the stronger legislation, which he said should include on-the-spot fines of at least €500. The IFA has also previously called for a national database for dogs.
“At the moment, we’ve been led to believe that there are over 800,000 dogs in the country. Now there’s just about 200,000 of those that have licenses. If that was enforced properly the extra money would help cover the cost of more dog wardens.
“We’re not going to accept from the minister that we are going to have dogs on leashes allowed on the hills. That is a no-go.
“We have put up with that for the last 20 or 30 years down here. It doesn’t work. So basically what we’re telling her is it’s no dogs on farmland and that will include hills,” the Kerry IFA vice-chair stated.
Fitzgerald also suggested that Fáilte Ireland and the IFA could produce guidelines for tourists outlining the protocol when walking on farmland and hills.
“We like to have tourism here. We like to have walkers on the hills, you’d love to meet people when they are out and about. But at the end of the day, leave your dog at home and if you do that everybody will be happy,” he concluded.