by Bernie English bernie@limerickpost.ie
ONE thousand horses – the vast majority of them healthy – had to be put down by Limerick City and County Council over the past two years.
And another 400 have had to be put to sleep so far this year, members of the Limerick local authority’s environmental committee have been told.
They were being briefed on the local authority new by-laws concerning the keeping of horses and the treatment of wandering horses.
Under the new rules, every horse will have to be licensed within six months of its birth. Leaving it any longer to licence an animal will mean that while the owner can still get registration papers, they will be endorsed to ensure the animal can never be sold to the profitable continental horse meat trade.
Members were told that of the 1,000 animals seized and put down over the last two years, 85 per cent were perfectly healthy but had been abandoned by their owner and could not be re-homed.
Cllr Eddie Ryan (FF) said the council was incurring too much expense in relation to horses. “This is not properly funded. It should be the responsibility of the Department of Agriculture, not the local authority”.
Cllr John Sheahan (FG) said the problem was that most horses couldn’t be traced back to their owners.
‘You have places where horses can be traded for cash. It’s not like the beef trade. You can buy a pony in a market for as little as €20″.
He said that in some cases the council was at fault for being “not the best of landlords. We rent land to some owners but we often don’t fence it”.
Included in the new bye-laws are conditions that children under sixteen will not be allowed to ride a horse on the public road and horse owners must apply for a licence to the local authority. Licences will not be granted unless the owners can prove they have between one and one and a half acres of grassland for the horses to graze on.
Independent councillor John Gilligan said that “there has never been a horse licence issued in this city. And that’s because owners are required to have 5 acres of land and have the animals microchipped”.
