"You need a dog licence for a King Charles spaniel but you don't need a licence for a tiger, or a dingo – because it is not classified as a domestic dog. It's crazy."

As the co-founder of the National Exotic Animal Sanctuary in Ballivor, Co Meath, which was set up to cater for the growing numbers of abandoned animals, Kevin Cunningham is only too aware of how the lack of regulation here is impacting on the vulnerable animals involved.

His voluntary not-for-profit charity receives calls at all hours of the day with reports of animals having been dumped by their former owners.

The sanctuary currently counts bearded dragons, tortoises, iguanas, an emu and Vietnamese pot-bellied pigs among the animals it has taken into care. It also caters for a range of other animals including monkeys, wolves, lizards and exotic birds

"We are based completely on donations and fundraising, and run a wildlife hospital too, which can involve hand-rearing animals. I have a deer at home in my kitchen."

The revelation that dingos, along with various other animals, are being openly sold to the public is a source of real concern to Cunningham and his partner, Yvonne Smalley.

"Obviously, if you have a male and female dingo, they are going to breed. Are we going to be facing what we faced in the 1990s with wolves, where wolf hybrids were produced after they were diluted into the dog population?" he said.

"These are dangerous animals which are not used to being handled, and there is no real screening of potential owners. You could be absolutely anybody and there is nothing to stop you buying them and bringing them home and putting them in your living room."

He pointed to the absence of long-promised legislation covering ownership of dangerous wild animals as a key concern, and noted the contrast with the UK, where tough laws dictate who is entitled to buy such animals.

"If there was a properly regulated system, where the people buying these animals had to apply for a licence for dangerous animals, for example, and with compulsory microchipping of animals, then what we saw happen with the wallaby in the nightclub would not have happened here," he said.

"With no regulations, people are just allowed to build up collections of all kinds of exotic animals. And it is left to us to pick up the pieces when they find they can no longer handle them."