A veterinary inspector who was banned from keeping animals for seven years and fined €4,000 has had the severity of his sentence reduced on appeal.
Michael O’Reilly, of Cois Maigh, Mogeely, Castlemartyr, Co Cork, pleaded guilty last May at Midleton District Court to seven charges under the Animal Health and Welfare Act, 2013, which related to 10 dogs kept at kennels near his home.
He was fined a total of €4,000, ordered to pay €5,000 in costs, given a three-month suspended prison sentence and disqualified from keeping animals for seven years by Judge Colm Roberts.
At Cork Circuit Court in Midleton on Tuesday, Jessica Kelleher, for O’Reilly, told Judge Helen Boyle she was seeking to have her client’s suspended sentence reduced to a record under the Probation Act and to have his disqualification from keeping animals reduced.
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Giving evidence, Irish Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ISPCA) inspector Caroline Faherty said she visited O’Reilly’s kennels on three occasions in May of last year. She initially inspected them alone and later returned with a veterinary inspector and dog warden from Cork County Council.
Ms Faherty said that she found eight Irish terriers, a Welsh terrier and a Jack Russell living in dark, dilapidated sheds in “appalling conditions”. She described mounds of faeces up to 4ft high covered in mould and signs of rodent activity. She said many of the dogs had matted fur and one had alopecia, but they were not underweight.
Ms Faherty said she was shocked when she discovered that O’Reilly, a veterinary inspector with the Department of Agriculture, owned the animals. She said O’Reilly was “aggressive” and “dismissive” when she put her concerns to him. She said on the two subsequent visits, the conditions got worse.
Ms Faherty said O’Reilly initially indicated he would “rather put the dogs to sleep” than surrender them, but eventually agreed to place eight of them in boarding kennels.
Ms Kelleher said O’Reilly was in a distressed state at the time because his father was seriously ill. She said O’Reilly would not normally have allowed the conditions the dogs were kept in to deteriorate in such a way. As a result of the prosecution, she said O’Reilly would most likely lose his job.
She said O’Reilly had pleaded guilty and wanted to apologise to Ms Faherty for the way he treated her. She said he had demolished the old sheds and built modern kennels and that a veterinary inspection confirmed the dogs there were being well looked after.
Judge Boyle said “there may have been a certain dawning of reality” for O’Reilly following his conviction. She said she accepted he was under stress due to his father’s illness and the time periods seemed to correspond.
She said Ms Faherty was to be commended for saving the dogs from the situation she found them in and it was right that she should get an apology from O’Reilly for the way he spoke to her, even if it came “somewhat belatedly”.
Judge Boyle upheld the three-month suspended sentence and the €5,000 in legal costs to be paid, but reduced the total fines payable to €2,000.
Regarding the disqualification from animal ownership, she said O’Reilly “has come a very long way” and would be entitled to keep the nine dogs in his possession until the number reduced to four. When there were four dogs still surviving, he would be permitted to keep a maximum of four dogs for a period of six years.
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