Dog pound upgrade to start and council aiming to appoint warden soon

A €200,000 refurbishment and upgrade of Mullingar dog pound is to go ahead, with the contractors likely to begin the project in the middle of this month, councillors learned at the March meeting of Westmeath County Council.

Concern over the condition of the dog pound, and over the fact that new dog wardens have not yet been successfully recruited for the area were raised by two members, Cllrs Ken Glynn and Alfie Devine.

“What's the position with the upgrade works that are supposed to be done? Has a design been put in place?” asked Cllr Glynn, remarking that whenever he raises a query on progress, he seems to get the same responses but no action.

“There's a lot of concerned people out there that are raising this and certainly there's concerns over lack of service,” Cllr Glynn said.

Cllr Alfie Devine raised the subject too, going on to reveal to colleagues that just that weekend, the corpses of three dogs that had been shot and “fired into a boghole” had been discovered in Coole (as reported in last week’s Westmeath Examiner), which, he said, again brought into focus the need for warden services.

“There's problems with dogs - in open spaces as well on public ground like lakes and parks - not on leads,” he said. “People are just taking advantage of the fact that there's no wardens out there and they’re just telling people to ‘mind their own business’.”

Cllr Devine finished up by stating that there is a need for enforcement and for investigation into matters that are happening.

Refurbishment

Director of services, Deirdre Reilly, told councillors that on March 10, Michael Bracken and Sons were awarded the contract to carry out the work on the pound. It was expected that the work will take four months.

On the subject of dog wardens, Ms Reilly said that at present, the community warden is taking on the function of a dog warden.

However, the aim is to have two dog wardens employed, and to that end, there was a recruitment process carried out in recent weeks: “Now we've a panel of potential employees and are hopeful to appoint an employee in the next two to three weeks. And we're also waiting departmental sanction for the second dog warden. So as soon as that comes in, at least we have a panel now to take from, and we'll get the second dog warden appointed as soon as possible.”

Ms Reilly said the issue of the dogs being dumped in Coole Bog would be a matter for the council’s environment sector.