To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs, pursuant to AQW 14814/17-22, what appraisal, if any, was carried out by his Department prior to the decision being made not to proceed with DNA testing of dog foul, despite the technology being available.

My Department has not undertaken a formal appraisal in respect of DNA testing of dog foul. However, a number of factors were considered in coming to the decision not to proceed with such an option at this point in time.

The majority of dog fouling offences can be attributed to irresponsible dog owners, who do not pick up after their dog. As such the uptake of DNA swabbing among these owners is likely to be low, rendering a voluntary scheme ineffective.

The administration and enforcement of a mandatory scheme, involving new legislation enabling compulsory DNA swabbing for every dog in Northern Ireland, updating and maintaining the database, testing of dog foul in a laboratory and tracking and fining those guilty of an offence, is likely to be very costly. Even with a mandatory scheme, it is likely that a not insignificant number of irresponsible dog owners would still decide not to register their dogs with the scheme, making the potential success of such a scheme very uncertain.

In addition, the Department has received correspondence from The Kennel Club (the UK’s leading dog organisation regarding outdoor access for dogs) on this issue, which supports the decision not to use DNA testing of dog foul. The Kennel Club’s research on this matter, based on pilot programmes conducted in recent years in England and on efforts to introduce DNA testing schemes overseas, has led the organisation to conclude that there is little merit in using DNA testing of dog faeces as an effective solution to prevent dog fouling. Furthermore, in keeping with my Department’s considerations as set out above, The Kennel Club concluded that such schemes would be very costly to implement yet unlikely to deliver significant benefits.

The Department will be considering additional measures to tackle the scourge of dog fouling in DAERA’s forthcoming draft ‘Environment Strategy for Northern Ireland’ which is due to be published later this year.