Animal Health and Welfare (Ban on Fox Hunting) Bill 2025: Second Stage [Private Members]
Dail Éireann — 2025-12-17
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Paul Murphy (PBP), Dublin South-West

The Minister is defending the indefensible and he knows it.
He is defending cruel, barbaric practices. He is defending the organised killing for human entertainment of a tiny minority of foxes. Then, he tries to do it in such a way as to suggest that it should not be divided along urban and rural lines, having two minutes previously said that this is a "wedge issue" that is "designed to be emotive and confrontational", and that there are many other rural activities we would like to ban. On the one hand, the Minister said we should not be pitching it as urban and rural, and we agree, but on the other hand, he was doing precisely that.
The Minister said we are presenting this as a binary issue. He was not clear on what non-binary way he wants to present it. Some of us are opposed to fox hunting. We are opposed to this cruel, barbaric practice. We think it must go the way of dog fighting. I do not know if the Minister had a problem with the banning of dog fighting. We are opposed to badger baiting. It should be banned immediately. Others do not agree with that. The Minister thinks that this should continue. That is a binary issue. I am sorry if that offends the Minister in some way.
The Minister did not say "rural pursuits" and instead went for "rural activities" because, of course, it brings us back to the presidential election. Fox hunting played an unexpectedly outsized role in the campaign as an illustration of how incredibly out of touch Heather Humphreys was, with her continued invocation of rural pursuits and her enthusiastic support for fox hunting, not shared by the vast majority of the public. In the end, the anti-fox hunting candidate won and the pro-fox hunting candidate lost, and it was a strong illustration for people that this person was wildly out of touch. Therefore, it is deeply ironic that we are going to have a vote tonight in the Dáil, where it seems the three big parties are going to continue to be out of touch, not take the lesson of that presidential election and vote to allow this cruel practice to continue.
Regarding the other arguments the Minister made, the only way he can defend the indefensible is with misinformation and a divisive approach. There was the suggestion that this is about pest control. First, to be clear, it is misinformation to say that our Bill bans the shooting of foxes. Of course, it does not.

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2025-12-17/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:29+00:00
Sitting date: 2025-12-17