Sinn Féin Senator Lynn Boylan has called on Minister McConalogue to introduce mandatory pre-verification for all online sales of dogs.

Senator Boylan said:

“Members of the Agricultural Committee were left without a shadow of a doubt as to the need for mandatory pre-verification of online adverts.

“Dr. Finbarr Heslin from Fido microchip database gave evidence to the Committee of how simple a pre-verification system is to implement. 

“However, without a legal requirement to do so, there is only one online platform that is currently carrying out pre-verification, and even then only 35% of their dog adverts are pre-verified.

“Constantly, we hear from Government that people need to do their homework when buying a dog online, but the public have no way of verifying that the information in the advertisement is correct.

“The technology is there – Fido has shown that it works and it is already very successful across Europe.

“To date the Minister has simply stated that the public must ‘do its own homework’ when purchasing a dog online, but that is simply impossible with no system is in place.

“It is now up to the Minister to introduce the legislation to make it mandatory. The Department must host a database that all verification systems can be linked to. This is already in operation in other countries.”