February 16, 2011
By Staff Reporter
But they will have to travel here via Britain and their pets will have to have been vaccinated against rabies at least seven months ago.
The program will start Dec. 11, just in time for Christmas visitors to bring inoculated animals.
It will mean owners will no longer have to put their pets through the six-month caging that has been required as part of anti-rabies measures.
The Department of Agriculture said Ireland would “piggy-back” on a British passports-for-pets program that is being opened up to trans-Atlantic pets.
“Ireland has maintained the free movement of pets between Ireland and the UK — thus animals that enter the UK under their Pet Travel Scheme are eligible for onward travel to Ireland,” a spokesman said.
When quarantine was introduced in Ireland in 1901, rabies was rife on the European continent and an outbreak at the time killed 173 people bitten by infected animals.
The disease attacks the central nervous system, causing an agonizing death.
The lengthy quarantine led to some owners refusing to come to Ireland for jobs during the Celtic Tiger boom as they could not bear to be separated from their cats or dogs.
At one stage, a big demand for the limited number of quarantine spaces in Ireland resulted in owners being forced to have their pets kept in facilities in Northern Ireland or Britain.
Since February 2000, Britain has been extending its travel area for pets from around the world.
Ireland has been following suit while a program for an EU-wide pet passport was being negotiated.
“A harmonized system covering the movement of pet dogs and cats has been now agreed for all of the EU, including Ireland,” the spokesman said. “This system will be implemented in late 2003 or early 2004 and will allow the direct travel into Ireland of qualifying pets from eligible countries.”
It is expected that the EU pet passports will be phased in because there will be difficulties with some EU enlargement country (rabies is still a problem in some Eastern European states).
The passport program means that pets must be fitted with an identifying microchip after getting a rabies vaccination, blood tests and extensive veterinary checks.
Initially the British program covered pets from 22 countries. It was later extended to rabies-free “islands,” including Australia, New Zealand and Japan. Until now, North America had remained excluded.
Since it was introduced, more than 75,000 dogs and cats from Europe and rabies-free islands have entered Britain without quarantine.