To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs to outline his plans to create a banned offenders register to prevent people found to have committed acts of animal cruelty from owning or working with animals.

Significant work has been taken forward by my Department to explore the feasibility of creating a register. Following extensive consideration of the relevant legal and financial considerations, establishing a publically accessible register is considered untenable.

Instead, the Department is developing guidance which will encourage animal rehoming organisations to require prospective animal owners to disclose the results of Access NI checks before transferring ownership to them. This will ensure that these entities do not place animals with those convicted of animal cruelty offences.

The Department is also investigating whether there is potential to further enhance information sharing between animal welfare enforcement organisations and whether there is any way of augmenting the checks that are already carried out to ensure that there is compliance with court imposed bans on the owning or keeping of animals.