Say 'No' to tax on responsible gundog owners in Northern Ireland

20 August 2010

What’s it all about?

On 24 May, Michelle Gildernew, Minister for Agriculture and Rural Development introduced the Dogs (Amendment) Bill to the Northern Ireland Assembly and it had its second reading on 7 June. The Bill contains proposals to make micro-chipping of dogs compulsory, to change the system of dog licensing, to increase the licence fee, and to make it an offence to allow a dog to attack another dog. 

Click here to view the content of the Bill

Click here to watch a video of the second reading of the Bill

Send an email today to your MLAs

BASC regards the proposals as a tax on responsible gundog owners in Northern Ireland and is calling on gundog owners to lobby their MLAs before it’s too late.

Every person in every constituency in Northern Ireland is directly represented by six Members of the Legislative Assembly (MLAs). Use email to contact each of your six MLAs.

To contact your MLAs go to www.writetothem.com and put in your post code.  You will then see a list of your MLAs and you can send your views to all of them in one go. If you receive a reply from any MLA please forward the message to BASC Northern Ireland at nire@basc.org.uk so that we can identify supportive MLAs on this issue.

Use the rest of this briefing to help inform your views.

What have others said about the proposals?

A public consultation on the proposals closed on 1 February. A total of 129 responses, including BASC’s, were received by the Department for Agriculture and Rural Development (DARD). A summary of what individuals and organisations said, and DARD’s assessment of those responses has now been published.

Click here to view the opinions of the respondents

Click here to view DARD’s assessment of the opinions they received

Another public consultation on the proposals closed on 30 July. The results of that consultation have yet to be announced.

The sections below contain BASC’s position on the micro-chipping and dog licensing proposals.

Compulsory micro-chipping

BASC does not believe that micro-chipping should be made compulsory.

Micro-chipping can be a valuable procedure in linking stray or stolen dogs with their owners, but the concept of compulsion risks adding a further financial burden to dog ownership.

However, as the premise for the consultation is largely to address stray and abandoned dogs and to raise funds to support wardening services, it would seem unlikely that irresponsible owners would comply with compulsory micro-chipping. Thus, compulsion would simply serve to add a burden to responsible owners, without helping to reduce dog abandonment.

If micro-chipping became a compulsory measure it could affect over half of all gun dog owners in Northern Ireland, given that in 2006 a BASC survey revealed that 43% of dog owners used micro-chips.

Dog licence fee increase from £5 to £12.50

BASC is not convinced of the merit of a dog licence in the first instance.

It does not exist in other parts of Great Britain, yet the consultation document notes that in those places the number of strays is lower than in Northern Ireland. This suggests that the existing licence in Northern Ireland has failed to address the issue of abandoned and stray dogs, as it is only the law-abiding who register and comply. Given that the fee is not a deterrent at £5, increasing the fee to £12.50 would not improve compliance rates and therefore would do nothing to assist with the problem of abandoned and stray dogs.

Given that the proposal would not see sufficient funds raised to cover the cost of the wardening service in full, a hike in the licence fee would not provide funds to allow the service to be expanded, so detection of failures in compliance would not improve and the overall objective would not be achieved.

The dog warden service is valuable and should be supported, however, as the whole community benefits from dog wardening we do not believe that the burden should be levied in the main on law-abiding dog owners through a licence fee. BASC believes that the dog licence should be scrapped to bring Northern Ireland into line with Great Britain and the wardening service should be met as part of local government spending.

What happens next?

Later this year the Committee for Agriculture and Rural Development will discuss the responses it has received from the public and may hear evidence from key stakeholders. The exact timetable has not yet been set. Once the committee’s discussions are complete it will report its findings back to the Minister. The publication of that report is scheduled for 29 November.

Click here to view the Committee’s forward timetable 

Go to Key Issues