1 Online Safety and Media Regulation Bill General Scheme Submission by Irish Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals on the Heads of the Bill Introduction The Irish Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ISPCA) is Ireland’s largest national animal welfare organisation that cares for all animal types. Our vision is to end cruelty to animals and our charitable objectives are to prevent cruelty, alleviate suffering and promote kindness to animals. The ISPCA has three animal centres, the National Animal Centre in County Longford, the Equine Rescue Centre in County Cork and the newly opened ISPCA Donegal Animal Rehabilitation Centre in County Donegal. The ISPCA has a team of nine uniformed Animal Welfare Inspectors who are authorised officers under the Animal Health and Welfare Act 2013, through a Service Level Agreement with the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine (DAFM). Our Inspectors currently cover 17 counties but as part of our Strategic Framework 2016 – 2020, we aim to recruit more Inspectors in the coming years until we have full coverage of the country. The ISPCA operates a National Cruelty Helpline for members of the public to report allegations of animal cruelty, abuse or neglect in confidence if required. In 2020, our National Cruelty Helpline received over 12,000 calls and over 3000 allegations of cruelty, abuse or neglect were investigated by our Inspectors. Whilst most of these calls are dealt with by means of verbal or written advice, our Inspectors will initiate prosecutions when necessary. In 2020 our Inspectors initiated 16 prosecutions with eight being finalised in court with positive outcomes. A total of 809 animals were seized by or surrendered to our Inspectors, including 422 dogs, 240 cats, 58 equines and 99 other types of animal. The ISPCA is also an advocacy organisation and campaigns for better protection for all animals including pet animals, farm animals, wild animals, equines and animals used in entertainment sport and scientific procedures. General Comments The ISPCA welcomes the opportunity to comment of the Heads of Bill and thanks the Joint Committee on Media, Tourism, Arts, Culture, Sport and the Gaeltacht for seeking the views of the ISPCA. In this submission, the ISPCA limits its response to Head The ISPCA is concerned about online content which depicts animal cruelty or shows humans treating animals in a degrading way. We believe that such content is harmful and offensive to all age groups but particularly harmful to young people and children under 16 who may try to emulate or copy actions contained in images in content accessed online. There is a well-established link between cruelty to animals and violence towards humans, including domestic violence 1 . Images depicting animal cruelty may result in desensitisation to animal suffering and encourage or promote animal cruelty. 1 https://irishvetjournal.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/2046-0481-61-10-658
Online Safety and Media Regulation Bill
Jul 10, 2023
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