The Irish Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals has chosen Co Longford as the base for its National Animal Centre. The society intends to spend up to £3 million developing an 80-acre farm with a house and outbuildings at Derryglogher, near Lanesboro.
The farm is an oasis of green in the boglands between Ballymahon and Lanesboro. This week, the ISPCA's chief executive, Mr Ciaran O'Donovan, outlined plans for the farm and its role in the future.
"We are going to develop this as our National Animal Centre over the next few years as money becomes available to us from various sources," he said.
"We purchased the land from a supporter of the society and we acquired it at a very reasonable price with the help of a £70,000 grant from the Department of Agriculture, Food and Forestry.
"There has been a growing need over the past number of years for a proper centre for the organisation, especially somewhere central in the country.
"Our first need is for an area where we can bring animals when orders are made in court for them to be handed over to us when there are convictions for cruelty," he said.
"In the future we will be able to bring such animals here and put them into proper housing and on pastures to allow them to heal." He said there was a growing need for this because some county organisations were under great stress to try to find places to put such animals.
"This, however, will be more than a kind of national refuge. We want to develop this much more and we have been looking at the experience of other European countries," he said.
"We want to turn this farm into a major education centre where people can learn about animals and how to care for them and rehabilitate them". Mr O'Donovan explained that the Irish Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals was an umbrella organisation to which more than 30 independent societies were affiliated.
Established in 1949 by local SPCAs, its aim is to prevent cruelty to animals through the work of its member societies and to promote the welfare and care of all animals through education and example.
Mr O'Donovan said the ISPCA already funded two donkey rest-fields, one in Donegal and the other in Co Wicklow. The society would be seeking help from the public to develop the centre and had opened an account for this purpose, he added.
A special bank account has been set up for donations. It is in the Allied Irish Bank, Ranelagh, Dublin. No: 08140470.