Following Today’s announcement by minister Andrew Muir we are deeply disappointed that Northern Ireland is taking this direction however handing the responsibility over to local government to enforce this XL bully type ban is going to be extremely difficult as we already have legislation in place to enforce licencing and micro chipping which is not being enforced by the 11 councils in Northern Ireland.
Each council has a dog warden department and a joined up 5 animal welfare offices which are there to ensure public safety and dog health and well being in N.I.
Causeway Coast Dog Rescue has been calling for a full review of the animal welfare service to understand current position in Northern Ireland, ensuring animal welfare reform and to deliver a fit for purpose service. We are also calling for an Animal welfare strategy to be included in the forthcoming Programme for Goverment so that a review and appropriate services are allocated which will also ensure a multidisciplinary approach to Animal welfare, incorporating education, communities and health. This ban will be enforced by 11 councils which are already going through a judicial review with daera on the £1.2m which was removed last year. We can not see how this ban will be enforced and shocked that this is the Minister’s first action to improve animal welfare in Northern Ireland.
