Any Irish people around here?

[Sekani]

Would love to know if anyone knows about herp laws of any sort in Ireland?

[GoFride]

Interesting question. The only laws I found had to do with animal welfare and prevention of cruelty. I read an article a few days ago from the New York Times about snakes being dumped and abandoned, mostly due to financial hardship - just google "Boom Over, St. Patrick’s Isle Is Slithering Again" if you would like to read it. Here is an excerpt from that article;
“We’ve got no regulation whatsoever covering exotics,” said James Hennessy, zoo director and founder of Reptile Village Conservation Zoo in County Kilkenny. “Once it’s in Europe legally and coming from other European states, you can pick up whatever you want.”
Hennessy is pushing for legislation because people are buying crocs, venomous, etc., and then trying to dump them. So I would guess if Ireland doesn't have laws yet, it will soon.

[Pythonfriend]

i dont know if it helps, maybe not.

In Germany you can theoretically keep anything, up to and including a herd of elephants. You just need to show, for some species, that you have enough money, enough time, enough space, and enough expertise and knowledge to do it.

And for many species, minimum requirements for the enclosure are set. Depending on the nation, even for ball pythons this often means that racks are a no-go. Big breeders in Germany tend to use a system of modular terrariums, these can be stacked.

So in the EU, at least you can have burmese pythons and reticulated pythons and green anacondas, no limit there, but the law gives you minimum enclosure sizes and so on to deal with. On the books is for example, for BPs, an opportunity to climb. It doesnt matter if it makes sense or not, BPs kept in the european union need to have an opportunity to climb. And the size of the ground surface is also given.

I dont know how it is in Ireland, but if its an EU member, maybe local laws are a problem, the EU does not ban any animals, you just need to be on the watch for regulations.

[Sekani]

Yeah we are part of the european union so maybe we go by the general european laws!
All I know is that we seem very undereducated about exotic pets and I don't think pet shops should be allowed keep and sell animals unless they know how to take care of them properly.
Good article as well, unfortunately theres a lot of abandonment of animals in a recession...