Animal Health and Welfare (Ban on Fox Hunting) Bill 2025: Second Stage [Private Members] Dail Éireann — 2025-12-17 ============================================================ Ruth Coppinger (PBP), Dublin West It is my time to speak now. I know the Minister of State finds that hard. The other issue is why we are talking about this now. The reason is that I get Private Members' time one and half times a year. That is why we are talking about it now. It is not a plot to make anyone look bad. It was either now or some time later. The reason it was put forward now was that it became a big issue in the Presidential election and I really thought a number of people would have caught up. On the thing about a grant, we had a briefing here last week. People from rural areas were there. We had a number of people here, such as Frankie Ward who has produced booklets talking about how this can be integrated into farming life. He has done surveys among sheep farmers and has talked about ways to protect livestock. One of the issues I raised on the grant was in the context of allowing hill farmers, who may be more open, obviously, to their sheep being taken, to have grants to help protect their sheep. The Minister of State is in government now, so that would have been something he could have helped with. There is a whole load of people who are going to come to the House tonight and press a button against this Bill. Some 80% of people are opposed to blood sports. Some 80% of people are opposed to fox hunting if you exclude the do-not-knows. It they are included, 73% were opposed to it in the last poll. They are from all around the country, rural and urban Ireland. We have a problem in this House. Three of the big parties are going to come in here and vote the exact opposite of what most of the population wants. They can make up any excuse they like, that they are representing rural Ireland or whatever else but the reality is there. That was why I called for a free vote, to at least allow TDs, who have given the general public the impression that they will uphold what they said they stood for, to express that. This is not a rural-urban issue. In conclusion, these are some of the comments from rural people who have contacted me. I mentioned Frankie Ward. Randal Plunkett is also here. I welcome the people who have attended - we have a packed Gallery - because we can see what an issue this is. Randal Plunkett, who runs the Dunsany nature reserve, has talked about the battle he has had getting these fox hunters to agree to keep off his land. They completely ignored him, he has gone to the police and nothing happens. That is the experience of loads of people throughout rural Ireland. I have testimony from a farmer in County Waterford as well about how they arrived unannounced on horseback or on foot. There are complaints about the Comeragh harriers. I could go on but I only have 15 seconds left. There is similar testimony from rural Galway. People in rural Ireland do not support fox hunting. The Minister of State has interests in tourism and maybe he is gaining financially from this, but there are very few people doing so in rural Ireland. There are other pursuits that could be encouraged to replace 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