Animal Health and Welfare (Ban on Fox Hunting) Bill 2025: Second Stage [Private Members] Dail Éireann — 2025-12-17 ============================================================ Michael Healy-Rae (IND), Kerry We have to eradicate our deer. We have to manage rural Ireland. I have heard people talking about colonial pursuits. Again, they are trying to give the public the message that this is only about people up on horses running after the poor fox. It is not. It is about the poor farmer who has to get up in the middle of the night to try to identify, follow, track and kill a fox because it is killing his or her lambs. That is what everybody over there wants to ignore. Some people's speeches have been extremely misleading. I recognise that Deputy Cronin actually did read the Bill. Her speech was entirely her own opinion but at least she knew what she was talking about, unlike other Members who just seem to be taking the narrative put out there. I reserve a very special word for Deputy Whitmore. I am sorry that, like a wasp, she came in, stung and ran but I will respond to her. On behalf of myself and Deputy Danny Healy-Rae, I will say one thing to her. This is the lady who is so anti-farming that, at a critical time when the Minister, Deputy Heydon, was doing everything he could to lead a campaign to maintain a nitrates derogation, she did everything she could to sabotage and undermine that. She spoke to the media and made a presentation to Commissioner Roswall in which she tried to completely undermine our hardworking farmers but she failed, just as she will fail tonight. The reason I reserve a special word for her, on behalf of myself and Deputy Danny Healy-Rae, is that she mentioned that she was contacted by some of our constituents. That same Deputy actually said on the record that she wonders who we represent. I will remind her of a small fact. Up to 30% of the electorate who went out to vote voted for a Healy-Rae. She can stick that in her pipe and smoke it. You cannot go against the electorate. They are the bosses. Could she say the same thing about herself, her political party or any of the Deputies over there? If they got 30% of the vote, they would be in orbit. When I am on a roll, I will take them out one by one. I heard what Deputy Eoin Hayes said about the Brits. He was talking absolute rubbish, again because he did not read or understand the Bill and does not care about the farmers who want to protect their livestock. Deputy Fitzmaurice mentioned something else in a very knowledgeable and sound way. He mentioned the diseases foxes spread. He said that cows can lose calves as the result of contracting diseases. He was right to raise that matter. I do not know if he was the only Member to raise it. --- Source: Houses of the Oireachtas. Licensed under CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). The Official Report is revised after first publication; the fetch timestamp below identifies the version quoted. 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