Date: Dublin, 30/03/2022
Background
It was our honour and pleasure to be asked to present at Leinster House to the Join Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine on March 30th 2022. We were asked, along with our partners at Fido.ie, to discuss Regulations and Verification systems of online sales of Pets. This meeting is part of the Committee’s Post-Enactment Scrutiny of the Animal Health and Welfare Act 2013, and the follow-on laws in 2015 and 2019. We feel that this meeting highlighted how there are technological solutions to many issues of selling dogs online, and having open data to verify adverts helps to protect the consumer.
Dogs.ie was the first platform to introduce a two factor authentication directly with a microchipping database, to verify the authenticity of their ads. This system has been a great success and is now being rolled out in other countries such as Switzerland, the UK and France. We presented to the committee as to why this type of verification is useful for both buyer and seller, and how it helps to make sure that the right information is present in an online advert, and how a potential buyer can also verify this information themselves. We believe the online sales of dogs should be as safe as possible, and that this verification platform VeriPet can play an important role.
We will continue to offer support to this committee in what ever manner they feel is required.
Links
Meeting archive: https://www.oireachtas.ie/en/oireachtas-tv/video-archive/committees/5528/
Meeting transcript: https://www.oireachtas.ie/en/debates/debate/joint_committee_on_agriculture_food_and_the_marine/2022-03-30/2/
Alternative video link: https://youtu.be/A7uV9mXACjk
Opening Statement
Here is the opening statement from Paul Savage, Founder of Dogs.ie to the committee. Click to download 📃
Further clarifications to questions
One question to the committee was around the maximum number of times a Dog Breeding Establishment can breed from a bitch. This information can be found in Section 15(e) and Section 15(f) of the Dog Breeding Establishment Act of 2010
(e) bitches do not give birth to more than 6 litters of pups each, and
(f) during any period of 3 years, not more than 3 litters of pups are born to a bitch.
Source: Dog Breeding Establishments Act 2010
Each breeding bitch is allowed to have 6 litters and not more than 3 litters in any three year period.
Note: these limits do not apply to Registered Sellers of Pets.
Thanks
There were many people who helped in this presentation, one special mention has to go to David Claxon at wiseup.pr
