Animal Welfare
Seanad Éireann — 2026-06-18
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Chris Andrews (SF), Labour Panel

I thank the Minister for coming in. I welcome that the Department of agriculture has published a draft general scheme of a Bill to amend the Dog Breeding Establishments Act 2010. Ireland is the puppy farm capital of Europe and this is obviously nothing to be proud of. Nearly six years since policy change in this area was first considered by Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil, this is the first meaningful legislative contribution that has been made.
The Bill is intended to introduce long-awaited measures regarding breeding practices, sales regulations and enforcement powers. That is very welcome. The most significant oversight though is the complete absence of a cap on the number of breeding females permitted within a dog breeding establishment. Without such a cap Ireland risks continuing its long-standing international reputation for industrial-scale puppy farms. Once again, we appear to be legislating in a way that accommodates and legitimises industrial-scale breeding operations rather than phasing them out and clamping down on them. There is no place in a modern animal welfare framework for puppy farms and any meaningful amendment of the Dog Breeding Establishments Act should begin the work of dismantling this model rather than entrenching it. We currently have multiple licensed dog breeding establishments authorised to keep hundreds of breeding females. These figures do not even include the pups or stud dogs. These breeding females do not have lives worth living. There is also very little transparency regarding the lives and treatment of stud dogs.
We are increasingly aware of the serious welfare and behavioural issues experienced by pups bred in these environments. Welfare cannot meaningfully be regulated at these scales, regardless of how robust the legislative language is on paper. Without a significantly low cap on breeding females, these reforms risking being entirely ineffective. I would be grateful if the Minister would clarify this issue and state whether the Government intends to put in a meaningful cap on the number of breeding females and therefore the scale of breeding establishments. I would also be very grateful if the Minister would clarify whether the public consultation responses or the dog control stakeholder group suggested including a cap and if so, why these recommendations were ignored.
I mentioned we are the puppy farm capital of Europe. Most puppies are sold through a website called dogs.ie . DoneDeal and Gumtree stopped selling them, as did most online sales platforms. Some 25,770 dogs and puppies were advertised on dogs.ie last year and every puppy farmer in Ireland trades on that site. The site facilitates puppy farms and it may be legal but I believe it should not be because it facilitates the puppy farms. If you use dogs.ie to buy a dog you can be 99.9% you are buying a puppy farm dog. It is something we need to address within legislation because clearly the facilitation by dogs.ie of puppy farms is not acceptable and we have to do something about it. We must ensure there is a cap and that any legislation that is put in place is effective, enforced and ensures animal welfare and dog welfare is prioritised.

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/seanad/2026-06-18/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:55:05+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-06-18