Page 1699 - Week 05 - Wednesday, 9 May 2018
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We needed more staff; we needed more commitment from staff. Later, in a ministerial statement on the management of dogs, the minister referred to the resolution of the Assembly in March 2017 to consider allocating more resources to investigate attacks by dogs. She still did not strongly commit to it at that point.
After a tragic death due to a dog attack in October, Minister Fitzharris said on radio:
I’ve spoken to the directorate and we will get more rangers.
She said in a media release that as previously announced there would be a doubling of the number of animal rangers and that they would introduce new roles into domestic animal services. She also said that the government was doubling the number of rangers, providing additional resources for DAS and an additional eight rangers were being recruited. Unfortunately, as recently as 20 April this year—20 April 2018, just a few weeks ago—a DAS employee wrote in an email to a member of the public who had complained about a dog issue, saying, “We are understaffed.” That was said about three weeks ago: “We are understaffed.” We continue to get reports of lack of response times from DAS. And now we see that the staff themselves are complaining about being understaffed. They are under enormous pressure.
Let me take you through one very sad case. On 23 November last year three dogs entered the private property of Ms Robyn Colless in Banks and killed her pet cat. Ms Colless said:
As her owner, not only am I mourning the loss of my beloved companion but I am also dealing with the traumatic experience of being the one that found her in the gruesome state she was left. Finding her in the state that three dogs left her after the attack has been one of the most painful and destressing experiences of my life. Since this event I have found it hard to leave my house without imagining the dogs returning to my property.
One can only imagine the trauma experienced by Ms Colless. We all find it difficult when we lose one of our beloved pets. Imagine the additional trauma of finding your beloved pet mauled on your own property, in a terrible state. I will not go into the terrible details. Ms Colless deserved to have a quick resolution of this matter so that she could move on. But this was not the case.
She repeatedly contacted DAS asking for the results of the investigation into the attack on her cat on her property. In frustration Ms Colless wrote to the minister on 20 March this year, a few weeks ago. In her letter to the minister, Ms Colless said:
This incident occurred nearly 4 months ago, and since then I have made contact with your investigator at least 3 times. With each call I have been given many excuses as to the delay of this investigation including, we are short staffed, we are recruiting, this has been passed to an investigator and the investigator who has that case is on leave …
This incident has been so traumatic for me, that I have had hypnotherapy in an attempt to dull the memory of my poor pet’s torn and tortured body, and I am still on medication to try and help me sleep at night and yet still no action by your investigating officers!
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