Anger as comedian Maeve Higgins claims ‘assistance dog’ for flight

Comedian Maeve Higgins is in the doghouse with disability campaigners after revealing that she pretended to need an assistance dog in order to avoid paying for her pet to travel on a flight from the US.

She told Ryan Tubridy on last week’s Late Late Show that she had bought a fake service-dog vest on Amazon and pretended to need an assistance animal because of a disability.

The Cork-born comic said she used the ploy to bring her dog, Shadow, on a transatlantic flight last Christmas in order to avoid red tape and charges.