Consider this paragraph in a news report from yesterday. For simplicity, I’ve put the relevant part in bold:
AGRICULTURE MINISTER Charlie McConalogue has written to Cabinet in an effort to tighten the laws around the control of dogs.
Speaking to RTÉ’s Morning Ireland today, McConalogue said that there are a number of laws in place for a number of dog breeds at the moment requiring them to be muzzled and have leads on if they’re out in public.
However, he said those requirements are not always followed.
“That is something that we have to come together that ensure that enforcement of existing laws are clamped down on. That’s why the Taoiseach asked me to engage across Departments in relation to how we can do that better, and also to look at what additional streps we can take to improve co-ordination and to address the issue,” the Minister said.
As one might expect, the imperative for these new proposals for enhanced dog control laws is the tragic incident in Wexford two weeks ago in which a young boy was left with permanent injuries on foot of a dog attack. The dog was later destroyed.
There’s a clue, though, even in that story: At the time of writing, two arrests have been made, of a man, and a woman, relating to the incident. Which suggests, readers might agree, that the Gardai believe that existing laws relating to the control of dogs may have been breached in the course of this tragic incident. In other words, Gardai appear to believe that what happened to the victim in this awful case was already illegal.
We also have, above, the Minister openly admitting on the national broadcaster that the existing laws around dogs are not always enforced.
Why, then, do we need new laws? Why not simply enforce and police those laws which we already have?
The answer to that, a cynic might suggest, is that there is always more political benefit to be gained from bravely and decisively passing new laws than there is in admitting that your Government has laxly allowed existing laws to go ignored. “We’re taking decisive action” is, and ever shall be, a more politically attractive stance than “we took our eye off the ball”.
There is, in fact, a case to be made that Ireland is already one of the least friendly countries in the world, if you are, like me, a dog owner: Take your dog across the Irish Sea to mainland Britain, and chances are, he or she will be allowed accompany you inside a restaurant in most towns. He or she will certainly be permitted a run on a beach, which is not always the case in Ireland. The difference in the UK is that dog control legislation is enforced quite strictly – to the extent that the only member of the Royal Family ever to have been convicted of a criminal offence, the Princess Royal, was so convicted on account of failing to control her dog, a creature named, perhaps appropriately, Dotty.
There is irony here, too, in what the Government chooses to act upon: Attacks by dogs in Ireland, or at least serious attacks like the Wexford incident, are vanishingly rare. Even genuinely “dangerous” breeds attack very rarely – more than 99% of Pitbulls will never bite anybody, after all.
By contrast, attacks on young people by other young people are on the rise. We have written here extensively, and without contradiction, on Dublin’s rising gurrier problem – the gangs of marauding youths who have, in the last few years, cost one young girl the sight of her eye, and placed many more young people in hospitals.
Perhaps – and I am only half joking here – the Government should consider some legislation to make sure that gurriers are on leads, and muzzled, most of the time in public places.
There has been no legislation of note, in recent years, to tackle this increase in human anti-social behaviour, or human attacks on other humans. Just as with the Dogs, one reason for this is the lackadaisical enforcement of existing law. The lack of a policing presence in many areas. The absence of prosecutions, and the emergence of the culture of “200 previous convictions, Judge”.
If we have laws, we should enforce them. If we are not enforcing the laws that we already have, then we don’t need new ones. We need a change in our culture, when it comes to taking the law seriously. Not a new law, to placate the news cycle.