DNA Testing On Dog Poo Poo Pooed

Pong of the castle…

he battle against those who feel the world is their dog crapper feels somewhat eternal around here, especially given just how many pooches Greystones has.

Not even the arrival in 2017 of outdoor loudspeakers along our seafront pleading for a little consideration for fellow walkers fell on happily deaf ears.

And now, at a recent Wicklow County Council meeting, the introduction of using dog DNA testing was deemed as being doomed to fail as well.

Not only would the gathering up evidence be a little tricky – and very possibly sticky – but the fact that the testing needed to take place in the US had the WCC officials, well, poo pooing the idea.

That something needs to be done was reiterated by the fact that there were just two fines issued for dog fouling in County Wicklow between 2023 and 2024, with just 48 all across the country – an increase of two from the previous year. Figures just released by Vision Ireland have 14 local councils areas issuing no such fines at all in 2024.

The problem may be that the dog fouling incident must be witnessed by one of Wicklow County Council’s dog wardens. If witnessed by a third party, that person must be willing to provide a witness statement for court proceedings.

As reported by The Irish Independent, assistant environmental awareness officer Jim Callery explained at the meeting that a pilot scheme by Leitrim County Council had proven to be “less than positive” as it was found to be very difficult to get DNA samples from the dogs themselves. The only DNA on record were for those dogs from rescue centres, and even after samples were sent to the US for analysis, no prosecutions followed.

Councillor Danny Alvey pointed out that DNA testing had worked in other regions and countries, and should it become cost-effective, “I think it would end the problem overnight“. For her part, Councillor Orla Finn felt the money would be better spent on more dog poo bins.

For DNA testing to work, concluded Councillor Lourda Scott, national registration akin to micro-chipping needs to be established for a database to match the samples to…”