Number of stray horses put down by council doubles

The number of horses put down by Cork County Council vets last year doubled compared to 2012. The local authority expects that it will have to euthanise many more in the next few years as owners continue to abandon them due to the recession.

In 2012, the local authority was forced to put down 66 horses, but the figure jumped to 136 last year, due to a number of factors.

Sharon Corcoran, the head of the local authority’s environmental directorate, which deals with stray horses, said it “was unfortunate” that the council was forced to put down so many of the animals.

She said that many owners were abandoning what they considered to be “less useful horses”, and in many cases this was down to not being able to care for them due to the recession.

Last year the council collected 227 horses which had been abandoned by their owners, up from 165 in 2012.

“When we get them we take them to the pound and microchip them and we wait five days for their owners to reclaim them,” Ms Corcoran said.

If the horses are not reclaimed the only alternative is to try and get them into sanctuaries. Some 78 horses were reclaimed by their owners in 2012, two fewer than last year. The council was able to send just three animals to sanctuaries last year, whereas it was able to house 11 in them in 2012.

Ms Corcoran said that sanctuaries are also under pressure to cope with increased demand and this is another reason why more horses are being put down.

A lot of donkeys are also being abandoned, but it is easier to accommodate them in sanctuaries, especially at the well-known one in the north Cork village of Liscarroll.

“It is the view among the veterinary community that the recession is causing the increase in the number of horses being abandoned. We expect that the situation (increasing numbers being abandoned) will continue for another few years,” Ms Corcoran said.

She said owners had a responsibility to look after their animals, but unfortunately several are declining to do so.

Many reports have been made about horses being abandoned in fields and left with nothing to eat.

Ms Corcoran said it is also expensive to get vets out to examine and in some cases euthanise the animals.

“Up to now we have been able to recoup the cost of this from the Department of Agriculture. But they are saying to us that they are going to reduce the grant we get,” she said.

Rising house prices

Ann Cahill

Europe Correspondent

Irish house prices are rising faster than any other in the EU — indeed prices continue to drop in most countries.

Having plummeted by more than half in Ireland on average, house prices rose an average of 3.7% in the three months to the end of September compared to the same period in 2012 — that’s nearly eight times higher than the EU average which saw a drop of 0.5%.

When the same quarter, July to September, is compared to the previous quarter, the jump is even more steep at 4.1% — the highest after Estonia, and six times the EU average increase of 0.7%.

Overall, prices have picked up a little but are still well below the 2008 level when the bubble burst in Ireland and Spain, and the banking crisis heralded problems for the construction industry.

According to a survey by the housing website, Daft, house prices in Dublin increased by an average of 11% in the past year while they continued to fall in many of the country’s cities including Cork, down 6%; and Limerick down 12%.