Dog ban.

Your home may be your castle but your pet is under a death sentence if it is unfortunate enough to be on Dublin City Council's hit list.
From today's Irish Times.

"Eleven breeds of dog, including Rottweilers, Bull Terriers and German Shepherds have been banned from all Dublin City Council properties, including houses, flats and estates, with immediate effect.

The council has said it will give tenants an opportunity to rehouse the animals but if alternative suitable accommodation cannot be found for them they will be destroyed.

The council has taken the step to remove all "dangerous breeds" due to the increasing numbers of complaints from tenants and because of the legal implications associated with an attack taking place on one of its properties. The ban initially applies to council housing and all public areas within council estates.

However, the council plans to amend its bylaws to include public parks in the ban. This would mean that anyone owning a dangerous dog could not walk it in a public park, even if they lived in private housing.

The council has also written to the Minister for the Environment asking him to ban all breeds of fighting dogs nationally. The 11 breeds are not banned for general ownership in Ireland but must be muzzled, kept on a special leash and be under the control of a person over 16 years old.

The breeds are: English Bull Terrier, Staffordshire Bull Terrier, American Pit Bull Terrier, Rottweiler, German Shepherd (Alsatian), Doberman, Rhodesian Ridgeback, Japanese Akita, Bull Mastiff, Japanese Tosa and Bandog. Cross-breeds of these dogs or crosses of these dogs with any other breed are also banned.

Executive manager of the council's housing department Michael O'Neill said tenants would be asked to remove any banned dogs but if they failed to comply the council would take them away. "Our information on these dogs is that that they can be very aggressive and while they might be family pets, that has to come secondary and would be no defence to us if a child or other vulnerable person was attacked on our property."

Labour councillor Kevin Humphreys said he understood council tenants may feel discriminated against, but he hoped that this was just the first step to banning these breeds nationally."

This is unreal. So if you have a German shepherd dog, who has never so much as growled as a person, that animal is also condemned to die because someone's dog bit someone? Outrageous.
This is a abuse of power pure and simple. This is heavy handed nonsense. A sweeping ban that does not take into account the history and behaviour of the individual dog. There was a child bitten in Kerry a few weeks ago, eighty stitches required, the breed? A labrador. Should we ban all labradors? No? Why not? They bite, dont they?
You cannot blame an entire breed on the actions of the few. You should not be able to tell responsible owner they cannot keep a much loved pet because some owners are not responsible. And if I was living in a council flat or house when I owned my doberman and they tried to remove him from me we would be having quite a high time of it in the courts.