Part of Oral Answers to Questions — Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs – in the Northern Ireland Assembly at 2:45 pm on 17 June 2024.
Andrew Muir
Alliance
2:45,
17 June 2024
I thank the Member for his supplementary question. There are strong merits to pursuing a ban. I want to engage with stakeholders in the coming weeks and months to get a clear position on our plan to take forward legislation in this mandate. The Member raises an important issue, and there is a strong justification for what he has said, but I also want to pursue many other areas of animal welfare legislation. That is why I want to engage with stakeholders to prioritise the interventions the Assembly needs to make in order to take every action that it can to outlaw animal cruelty in Northern Ireland.