By CHRIS GRAEME
chris.graeme@theresidentgroup.com
A left-wing party has criticised the lack of inspections and licences at council-run catteries and kennels in Portugal.
This is despite the fact that a regulation was introduced 10 years ago, making it mandatory for regular checks by veterinary officials to ensure that municipal animal facilities are legal and well run.
According to the Bloco de Esquerda party, many municipal-run dog and cat shelters do not have licences and are therefore being run illegally.
The party’s parliamentary deputies say that public health is being put at risk as well as the health and wellbeing of the animals.
The root of the problem lies in the fact that the institution which is supposed to carry out such checks and collect information of inspections and conditions – the Veterinary Directorate-General (DGV) – isn’t doing so at the vast majority of Official Animal Collection Centres (CROs).
The issue has been raised in Parliament by Bloco de Esquerda MP Rita Calvário and directed at the Ministry of Agriculture which oversees the DGV. The party accuses local councils and the Government of providing a “lack of public information on DGV inspections and legal procedures against those dog and cat shelters which do not provide adequate conditions and levels of care in which to house the animals”.
According to information collected by the Order of Portuguese Veterinary Doctors (OMV), out of a total of 308 districts nationwide, only 81 Official Animal Collection Centres are even licenced by the DGV.
And the Bloco de Esquerda claims that the other districts in Portugal either do not carry out inspections or do not even have cat and dog shelters and have not set up agreements with neighbouring municipal councils that do. Others use catteries and kennels that are not licenced by the DGV.
“What we don’t know is the total number of catteries and kennels that aren’t licenced, where they are and at what point in the licencing process, if any, the ones that do exist, are at,” said Rita Calvário.
The left-wing MP said that the Order of Portuguese Veterinary Doctors (OMV) had instigated a judicial process to make the DGV and its Regional Departments publish information about licencing and inspection procedures.
But the DGV stated that it would only supply such data to the OMV “if issued with a court order”.
And following a reply from the Ministry of Agriculture addressed to the OMV, the Bloco de Esquerda party has concluded that “apparently, the DGV doesn’t even know which animal collection centres are licensed and therefore legal”.
“This basically is evidence that it is not, as an official body, fulfilling its legal obligations to inspect such premises and therefore can be penalised for breaking the law,” she said.
In addition, the BE states that the DGV does carry out inspections and issue licenses at private veterinary clinics and surgeries, in other words where public and animal health and welfare isn’t so obviously in question.
Now the party has directed a number of specific questions to the DGV demanding to know how many illegal animal collection centres there are operating in Portugal, where they are and what actions the DGV is going to take to ensure they are properly inspected, maintained and licenced.
