To ask the Minister of Justice to detail the number of people (i) prosecuted; and (ii) convicted of causing unnecessary suffering of service animals since 2015.

The information requested in relation to successful prosecutions for offences involving causing unnecessary suffering of service animals is not readily available. Prosecutions and convictions data held in Departmental datasets are on the basis of offence description and there is no specific offence for causing unnecessary suffering of service animals.

To identify cases which related to causing unnecessary suffering of service animals would require a manual search of case records for causing unnecessary suffering to animals and other animal cruelty offences under the Welfare of Animals Act (Northern Ireland) 2011, of which there were 305 dealt with at courts in the period 2015 - 2020. We estimate that to locate, retrieve and extract any information that might be relevant to your request would involve work of more than the appropriate limit.

The appropriate limit is specified in regulations and for central government is set at £700. It is estimated that to search systems manually for relevant information to identify whether offences for which a conviction was handed down for causing unnecessary suffering of service animals, it will take one member of staff approximately ten minutes per case, giving a total of over 50 hours work. At a cost of £25 per hour, this equates to over £1,250 which is higher than the appropriate limit.