Only 22 per cent of Ireland's estimated 750,000 dogs are licensed, it has emerged following a meeting between sheep farmers and the Department of the Environment, writes Sean MacConnell, Agriculture Correspondent.
The latest figures at the Department show that only 170,000 dogs in the State, in which it is estimated there are 750,000 dogs, are licensed.
Following the meeting between the Irish Farmers' Association's sheep committee and senior officials at the Department, there was a call for much more control on marauding dogs.
Mr Michael Holmes, chairman of the committee, called on the Minister for the Environment, Mr Dempsey, to introduce stricter controls to prevent dogs from attacking sheep flocks.
"Each year marauding dogs inflict severe damage on hundreds of sheep flocks throughout the country and this cannot be allowed to continue," he said.
Mr Holmes called on the Minister to introduce a compulsory system of identification for all dogs so owners could be made fully responsible for any losses or damage caused.