Animal Health and Welfare (Ban on Fox Hunting) Bill 2025: Second Stage [Private Members] Dail Éireann — 2025-12-17 ============================================================ Ruth Coppinger (PBP), Dublin West I want to raise some of the alternatives to fox hunting because I did not get a chance to mention them. To be clear, drag hunting is something with which I have absolutely no issue. It allows people to go out on horses or with their dogs. They follow an artificial scent across agreed routes. Clean boot hunting is another one that is being done in the UK. What this Bill does not deal with is a number of things. It does not deal with shooting. Somebody can shoot a fox. The Bill does not mention it. When you are drafting a Bill, if something does not get mentioned, it means it is not in it. We heard issues from Sinn Féin and that it was its members' position at its Ard-Fheis, that they have had a debate. Gun clubs were mentioned continually. This is nothing to do with gun clubs; this is about fox hunting. It was also said that people do not go out with a cruel intent. It does not matter about their intent. If the end object is that a fox will be caught and killed in a prolonged way, it is cruel. Drag hunting is an alternative Sinn Féin might argue for at its Ard-Fheis. I do not agree with this thin end of the wedge argument. We are dealing with one issue. We are dealing with fox hunting. Members vote on that and on that alone and they should leave the deliberate misrepresentation out of it. Deputy Kenny said he has had a groundswell of support. The groundswell of support has come from people in favour of the Bill. Let us be clear about that. There has been massive social media support and from the number of people who have got behind this in the seven months since I raised this on First Stage. Deputy Cronin talked about her personal beliefs colliding with her party, about how she has to go in and vote for this because united Ireland is her priority and she is involved in a collective struggle. First, there was a suggestion that I am splitting the left by raising stuff. I am going to come in and raise issues to do with anyone who is oppressed or animals that are being brutally treated. I cannot wait around for Sinn Féin to change its policy; I am sorry. If I had waited for that, we would not have had repeal. I was bringing repeal Bills in here. Sinn Féin was sitting socially conservatively on issues. I cannot wait for it to catch up. That is not why I was elected. I was elected to push things forward, not sit and wait for the rest to catch up. The only people who are splitting the left is people who do not agree that animal rights is a priority issue for the left. People who are serious about a progressive left would want to question why they cannot convince their party conference to get rid of fox hunting. They really should be able to push how important that is. Deputy Carthy talked about regulation. The problem is it is regulated and as we can see it is a free for all in reality because there is so much of it happening. I will finish that point by saying that TDs were mentioned because a number of TDs have told people when they were going to vote last year that they were against blood sports and fox hunting. People are absolutely entitled to contact those TDs and ask them to vote with us tonight. To say we are somehow targeting TDs, people should get a grip here. It included people in Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael but it just so happens that a lot of TDs in Sinn Féin gave people the impression that the party was against fox hunting and against blood sports. Sinn Féin did not have its Ard-Fheis in the autumn. I understand it had to postpone it. That was a good reason to allow a free vote tonight as the party did not have time to change its position. However, everybody who voted last year - most people, certainly - would have expected that Sinn Féin was in line with this Bill. Regarding the hostility to rural life that is being talked about, there is a sell-out coming up on Mercosur and other EU issues. This Government is going to sell out the people it drums up in rural areas. To talk about fox hunting is a nice distraction for the Government, making it out that it is the big bad people from Dublin coming here taking all of their livelihoods away. I recognise that people do have livelihoods involved in this. I am absolutely open to discussion but I think there are alternatives. --- 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