A website advertising dogs for sale has made a complaint to the Clerk of the Irish Senate after Sinn Féin Senator Chris Andrews renewed his claims linking the site to puppy farming.
Puppy farms are places where Scottish dog lovers have over the years been sourcing dogs which are transported illegally to Scotland via the Belfast ferry route to Cairnryan.
In a 20-page submission, Dogs.ie founder and chief executive Paul Savage, said the Senator’s comments “have to a substantial degree, adversely affected and are likely to continue adversely affecting the reputation, trade, dealings and commercial relationships” of the platform.
The business, owned by Synora Technologies, said its complaint “concerns the repeated use of parliamentary proceedings to make serious assertions about a named business, including assertions concerning its conduct, intentions and alleged complicity in animal abuse, without a reliable evidential basis”.
Speaking under privilege two weeks ago in the Seanad, Andrews said users of the website “can be 99 per cent sure that they are buying a puppy farm dog”.
On Thursday, Andrews clarified in the Senate, which is the Upper House of the Irish parliament, that “there is only an alarmingly high probability they are buying a puppy farm dog”.
He said Dogs.ie was “central to the puppy farming we have in this country. It provides breeders and sellers an opaque online marketplace that allows them to easily turn a profit.”
The Senator referred to “industrial-scale” puppy farms making a profit from the website, something that was exposed by investigative reporter Samantha Poling on the BBC Scotland Disclosure programme..
He claimed “a casual browse” of the website would reveal dogs advertised for sale from puppy farms with hundreds of breeding females on site.
“I would not even call that a puppy farm. I would call that a puppy factory. Many of these high-volume breeding establishments are well known to have atrocious animal welfare standards,” Andrews said.
Savage said the Senator’s allegations “go substantially beyond criticism of the existing legislative framework or advocacy for greater regulation”.
He said the term ‘puppy farm’ was not a defined legal category, that there was no national register to identify puppy farmers, and the website did not inspect breeding premises.
He also rejected as “particularly serious” and untrue claims that the website “turned a blind eye to abusive practices”, suggesting the business “consciously permits” animal abuse for commercial gain.
It also identifies linked accounts and attempted circumvention, refuses ads, blocks accounts and reports appropriate matters to the relevant authorities, he said.
The business said it had also made submissions to the Department of Agriculture proposing improvements to the regulatory system, including a greater role for veterinary practitioners in identifying unregistered breeding activity.
“These actions are incompatible with the suggestion that Dogs.ie is willing to ignore abuse for profit,” Savage said.
Minister for Agriculture Martin Heydon is advancing legislation to reform dog welfare and improve breeding standards.
Animal welfare organisations have called for the legislation to include a cap of 30 on the number of breeding females permitted within an establishment. The Minister is to explore such a limit, but has said there are legal difficulties around the issue.
