Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine Martin Heydon has said that he anticipates that a new national animal welfare strategy will be published in the second half of the year.

The minister had previously indicated in March that the strategy was due in the second quarter of the year.

It would appear that this timeline will now not be met, with the strategy now expected to be published sometime in the second six months of the year.

Responding to a number of parliamentary questions on the issue, Minister Heydon noted that the last animal welfare strategy - which was also the country's first - came to a conclusion at the end of 2025.

During last year, a process began to develop a new animal welfare strategy, which Minister Heydon said will act as a framework for engagement and collaboration to "direct future activities with the aim of benefiting both animals and Irish society".

According to the minister, development of that new strategy "is now well underway".

The drafting of the strategy follows stakeholder engagement, including a non-statutory public consultation, which was launched on November 19 and ran until January 2.

In excess of 1,750 individual submissions were received as part of that process, Minister Heydon noted.

"In moving to the drafting stage, my department is working through the issues arising from this consultation and other relevant issues," he said.

According to the minister, the new strategy will continue to adopt a ‘One Health, One Welfare’ approach.

This involves "acknowledging and valuing the inter-dependencies between human, animal and environmental health, and taking an evidence-led approach to policy making, target-setting, monitoring and evaluation".

"I anticipate the new strategy will be published in the second half of 2026," Minister Heydon said.

Animal welfare

Speaking when the consultation on the new strategy was announced last November, Minister Heydon said: "Animal welfare is a topic of huge importance, to society as a whole and to all those responsible for animals, including the farming sector and pet owners.

"As a modern European society, we are bound by evolving norms with respect to how society values and treats all animals," he added.