Minister McConalogue who employs a convicted animal abuser as a welfare official.
The thing is when you blog about animal welfare you could be accused of being a broken record and worse. Well, one department vet has a history of going around telling people, I’m trouble, which could be deemed a worse insult. Whenever fellow rescuers and vets bring me back these stories: I only reply with a question: Why am I trouble? I work 24/7 at a Sanctuary, always out there helping animals, and often helping good people who don’t have the means to adequately provide for their animals. Could it be because, once upon a time, I kept reporting and reporting and then when no one helped animals being abused or neglected, I would report their apathy and negligence. Yes, that could point to the trouble label.
Oh, yes, I could write a book on Department vets and I’ve said it before in posts, nobody would believe the stories and you know what, even though I witnessed DVOs acting badly when it came to animal welfare cases, I still don’t want to believe what I heard or saw. So, did it surprise me that a senior official was found guilty of, to quote the judge, ‘the greatest form of cruelty’. Absolutely not!
Best remember, next time you ring their welfare line to report cruelty, make sure and ask them not to send, Mr.Killgariff. After all he is OK with emaciated animals, animals with breaks, and donkeys with curled hooves so bad, they can’t walk. Come to think of it a lot of them are OK with all of the above. Although my rescue friend in Cork reassures me they have a super DVO. Now, how do you move weak and dying animals to cork so they can be seized?
I wonder who is auditing this department and how are they getting away with gross incompetence and how arrogant is Minister McConalogue to challenge a judge’s handling of a cruelty case! Would he let this man mind his own animals? I doubt very much. So many questions and I’ve so little time.
I wish I kept that letter from the Department’s regional office in Limerick – the one that said, I was part of the problem following a complaint I made. The only problem I present, is asking them to do their job. And more serious an issue is: they aren’t over park benches, animals suffer and die because the majority of them refuse to enforce the law. Yes, imagine. Why is that so? Unlike rescues, they don’t have to bring the animals home with them. But seizures involve time and paper work so best do a few token ones for the paper!
You know how they say, people’s friends tell you a lot about them. Well, what does it tell you about the Minister that he is unprecedentedly challenging a court decision on behalf of an animal abuser who happens to be his employee,who happens to be a welfare official?
No, you couldn’t make it up and sure, you’re only trouble if you tell the truth about this Department, and we all know, they can’t handle the truth. The Minister is so blinded by it, he is going all the way to the courts despite a backlash from fellow TDs – never mind the voters.
Animal Welfare needs to be immediate removed from this department as the Minister needs to learn about welfare before he actually can enforce it. His shocking intervention is indicative of all the rottenness in this department and because of his telling behaviour his subordinates will say ‘sure the boss not only turns a blind eye to our lack of law enforcement, he’ll get us off the hook if we neglect our own animals.’
There are fields all over Ireland that are graveyards for cows, horses, and donkeys. Most of these fields and their addresses would be found on their records given many have been reported to the department. But the department seem to work more at ease with the dead than the living. They are really good at removing carcasses.
As the Minister digs into his meat and two veg today, I wonder has he given any thought to the emaciated cows, the donkeys in chronic pain with over grown hooves, or the cow with the broken leg with nothing to eat or drink. No, he is thinking how to get his employee’s suspended sentence reduced to a fine only.
I would be concerned about the mindset of someone not only OK with that level of chronic cruelty, but even more so that he wants his sentence reduced because the judge went beyond his scale of sentencing / fines afforded to him. And he wants him to remain as a welfare official. This can’t be so!
Oh no, we won’t be distracted by a legal technicality Mr.McConalogue: cruelty is cruelty after all. I wonder what’s going on? Is it the fact the judge questioned how this man is still in his position on full pay or is this a dirty political manoeuvre?
Everytime you pass a field or cattle well taken care of, I hope you hear the cries of starving livestock. It’s a really distressing sound. I know as I’ve reported a farm five times with dead and starving cattle. Your DVO said to a neighbour of the animal abuser, ‘sure, what can we do?’
Now I could go on, but there are so many animals needing my attention today. I guess you wouldn’t expect welfare officers on lucrative salaries to work past 5 Monday-Friday or God forbid on them weekend. Sure no animal suffers or dies outside of office hours. And there are always those awful trouble makers who will see to your work.
(This post is all over the place as I’m typing on a phone as I clean out stables of two ponies reported to the Department who left them to die after being reported 25 times!)
The Reluctant Rescuer 