Member's statement: Bailey: Magilligan Prison Comfort Dog
Member's statement by Mr Jon Burrows on .
- MLA
- Mr Jon Burrows
- Party at the time
- Ulster Unionist Party
- Date
- 15 September 2025
- Type
- Member's statement
- Business
- Members' Statements
- Heading
- Bailey: Magilligan Prison Comfort Dog
- Assembly identifier
- Official Report component 5099129
Read the official Assembly record
Text
I raise the issue of a dog that has been incarcerated for life, I am afraid to say, in Magilligan prison by the leadership of the Northern Ireland Prison Service and by our Department of Justice. There is not single animal charity that has not, to me, expressed outrage that a dog has been placed, with the title of "comfort dog", inside Magilligan prison. It has no master, and it has no handler. I am unaware of any service dogs that are in that position. Anyone who understands pets or working dogs professionally knows that they need to have a handler and a master. This dog does not go home; it lives in the prison. I think that it is our job to cut across party lines. We are here to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable, and a great number of people in the Prison Service are very uncomfortable with the fact that the dog is there. The staff who are looking at after it are not trained, it has no designated handler and it is passed from pillar to post between untrained staff. I have had it confirmed in writing by the Justice Minister that it does not go home and that it has no master. Those who understand service dogs know that they have clear boundaries. Dogs in the Prison Service or the Police Service and other service dogs wear a different harness at work than they do when they go home. There are dogs that will be hypervigilant at work but will sleep through a thunderstorm when they go home because they know that they are at home. This dog lives in a prison. The Justice Department should be a role model for good behaviour, not ignore it. Every dog charity agrees, and Causeway Coast Dog Rescue has been speaking to me all weekend. I saw some pictures — an attempt, perhaps, to draw equivalence — of a comfort dog supporting victims of crime in court. I welcome that. That dog, a St Bernard, is brought in to see the victims of crime by its handler, its owner. It then goes back home. There is no equivalence between that and a dog that is kept in prison. There are real questions about the welfare of this dog. To whom is it microchipped? Who is the lawful owner? Who is responsible for it? No rules, no regulations, and yet it is in one of the most high-risk settings that you can have in society — a prison. It is housed in the H2 wing, and it is walked by a sex offender. We agree that there is a role for rehabilitation, but there have to be proper boundaries and proper safeguards for our animals. Therefore, I ask for cross-community and cross-party support. We need to look out for this animal. You cannot pluck out an animal and put it in a prison with no trained handler and never let it go home. It is an abuse of the animal, and I am calling for the Justice Minister to cease this programme until there is proper legislation and proper safeguards and boundaries.
525 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.
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