» Deputy slams ‘ridiculous’ Department spend
paying for the pets of BOTPS, “and how it got approved”.
The outlay by the Department of Integration is in addition to €808,132 spent by the Department of Agriculture on transport, kennelling and veterinary services for Ukrainian pets, which was exclusively revealed by the Irish Mirror in February.
In a draft policy document, the Department of Integration indicated it had begun paying for the accommodation of animals on an “ad hoc basis” at the beginning of the Ukraine crisis.
However, it sought to “regularise” its policy on pets after around eight months, because “accommodating them entails a cost, and there is a logistical challenge in terms of securing accommodation in a challenging environment”.
Email correspondence involving top officials shows that there was little resistance to the policy change within the department, although one person noted that “pets are extremely important to children”.
Another expressed concern that the U-turn could constitute a breach of contract.
Integration Minister Roderic O’gorman was “very eager” to approve the new policy, according to officials, who said the message coming from him was clear. We will not be accommodating pets from a given date or paying for them to be accommodated.”
Mr Mcnamara said the determination at the top level to terminate the practice constituted an admission by the minister and his department that it had been an inappropriate use of funds from the beginning.
He added that the Department
was to blame for the policy – not the people who benefited from it.
The Clare Independent Deputy said: “I presume the people arriving here with pets were prepared to pay for them in the same way as everyone else does or as they would have in Ukraine.
“But if you find a department stupid enough to pay, then, of course, I wouldn’t blame people for allowing the department to pay for it. It’s ridiculous.”
A spokeswoman for the department said the Government had communicated that it would no longer be providing accommodation for newly arrived or newly acquired pets in state-funded accommodation from November 9, 2022.
The Department spokeswoman added: “BOTPS must make their own arrangements for pets, as the Department no longer assists with accommodating pets.”