EDITORIAL: Council make dog's dinner of pound issue

The council has made a dog’s dinner of the pound issue reported on page two of this week’s Nationalist and it seems local charities are propping up Tipperary County Council in the provision of such services for canines.

Aileen Hahesy reported in October that stray dogs picked up in south Tipperary by the county council Dog Warden were being sent to the local authority’s Dog Control Unit in Nenagh as the kennels they were previously taken to in Clerihan is no longer providing the service.

Council management have also been reminded that public representatives were assured when the council-run dog pound in Kilsheelan closed in 2018 that the service would remain in south Tipperary. But now, all stray dogs or lost dogs, are being transported to Nenagh by the south Tipperary Dog Warden. Sure, where’s the sense in that?

Gina Hetherington, founder of PAWS Animal Rescue based in Mullinahone, is a rock of sense when it comes to this issue.

When I spoke to her last week, she said: “ We had a perfectly good pound in Kilsheelan and it was closed down. The council should have invested money into it and refurbished it, it is now sitting empty. The local authority just closed the gates and walked away.

“There’s a perfectly good plot of land in Kilsheelan and they should reopen the pound there and spend some money on it. The lack of a facility in south Tipp is causing the overflow in the north Tipp pound. They should never have closed Kilsheelan.”

Gina is 100% correct.

And as well, any south Tipperary pound should have a full-time employee like north Tipp and Kilkenny, so that it is not expected that the Dog Warden has to clean and feed the dogs as well as do his own duty as a warden.

We have exceptional Dog Wardens in Tipperary but they also need the assistance of a third warden, even part- time, because of the vastness of the area to be covered.

Come on Tipperary County Council, sort it out!