So let me get this straight...we're trying to educate the country about animal rights, the animal welfare department is fighting an uphill battle against animal cruelty, we've got hundreds of dogs awaiting adoption making it almost impossible for our animal sanctuaries to cope, and just weeks after the nation expressed its love for animals during a silent protest with record attendance, the authorities go ahead and pigheadedly introduce yet another animal-unfriendly measure to make it even more difficult to care for an animal.

Apart from going down in 'political bad timing' history, the new legislation that threatens to fine dog owners mammoth amounts should they be caught taking their dogs to swim in swimmers' zones, is undoubtedly the most absurd piece of nonsensical logic that I've come across this week.

It took me a while to write about it because initially I gave the authorities the benefit of the doubt thinking that they couldn't possibly be so thick as to introduce such measures now. I honestly thought that there had to be a good reason for these new laws. I thought that maybe I was missing out on some bit of logic somewhere, that there was undisputed proof that this was a good thing, but honestly, I looked everywhere and still haven't found anything that justifies this move.

In true arrogant style, which has now become typical of this administration, the only sorry excuse of an explanation came from the Health Ministry, which said that this was meant to keep in check the possibility of spreading diseases.

So, let's assume for a second that this is true, then why on earth did they wait so long to enforce these rules? (laws barring dogs from swimmers' zones came into force in 2009, but are only being enforced now).

Is our health that unimportant?

Is it that down the list of this government's priority list that we could afford to wait so long?

Was awarding themselves an additional €600/week more important?

Honestly, I don't think our health has much to do with it at all, because if it did, the Health Ministry would have published the research that proves their point, shutting everyone up in one big swoop.

In addition, if health was the true reason for the introduction of these restrictive laws, then the ropes that are used for the designating swimmers' zones should be made out of some sort of of technologically futuristic material that keep diseases out, because I don't know if the authorities have noticed, but sea water has a tendency to travel under and above ropes, and with swimmer zones just centimetres away from non swimmers' zones, the whole thing is just inconvenient to pet owners and surely not effective in avoiding cross contamination and the spreading of diseases.

I could somehow stretch myself to understand the part of the law which stipulates that domestic pets are not to be taken on sandy beaches and that owners must ensure that their pets are not a nuisance to other bathers and should clean any fouling, but when we're trying to teach our kids that pets should be treated like their another member of the family, it is bizarre not to allow them to take them to the beach to swim in the hot summer months.

The ridiculous high fines linked to this offence - a minimum of €232 and a maximum of €4,658 for a first offence and a maximum of €11,600 for a second offence - have me thinking that this is more of a money-making scheme than anything else. I mean let's face it, before Star's case no one was ever fined more than a few hundred Euro for animal cruelty. In fact 10 people were taken to court accused of various degrees of cruelty, and between them all, they were fined just over €2000! So, to be able to slap on a fine of €4, 658 just because someone takes their dog down to swim at a swimmers' zone is downright outrageous.

Have we got our priorities messed up or what?