The Act applies only to vertebrate animals, as these are currently the only demonstrably sentient animals. However, section 1(3) makes provision to extend the Act to cover invertebrates of any description in the future if the Department is satisfied on the basis of scientific evidence that these too are capable of experiencing pain or suffering.
Text created by the Northern Ireland Assembly department responsible for the subject matter of the Act to explain what the Act sets out to achieve and to make the Act accessible to readers who are not legally qualified. Explanatory Notes accompany all Acts of the Northern Ireland Assembly.
Access essential accompanying documents and information for this legislation item from this tab. Dependent on the legislation item being viewed this may include:
All content is available under the Open Government Licence v3.0 except where otherwise stated. This site additionally contains content derived from EUR-Lex, reused under the terms of the Commission Decision 2011/833/EU on the reuse of documents from the EU institutions. For more information see the EUR-Lex public statement on re-use.
