Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 8 October 2024
234. Deputy Paul Murphy asked the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage if the 3,325 hares said to have been captured for coursing in the 2023/2024 season were all individual hares or if the figure includes multiple captures of the same hares. [39684/24]
View answer235. Deputy Paul Murphy asked the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage to provide copies of the results of post-mortems carried out on two dead hares at both the November 2022 and October 2023 Thurles coursing meetings; and if the release of the remaining hares before the results of tests were received constituted a breach of condition 7 of the licence issued (details supplied). [39685/24]
View answer236. Deputy Paul Murphy asked the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage if, given the growing calls for a ban on hare coursing, he will refuse a request from the Irish Coursing Club for multi-year coursing licences and bring this cruel blood sport to an end by revoking the current 2024-2025 licences. [39686/24]
View answer237. Deputy Paul Murphy asked the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage if he will remove subsection (3)(b) from Section 45 of the Wildlife Act 1976 which allows for ‘the sale by a person of live hares to a coursing club affiliated to the Irish Coursing Club’. [39687/24]
View answer241. Deputy Paul Murphy asked the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage the reason NPWS officials agreed to provide the coursers with ranger reports prior to their publication on its website (details supplied). [39719/24]
View answerI propose to take Questions Nos. 234, 235, 236, 237 and 241 together.
All hares that are captured under licence are captured and tagged by the Irish Coursing Club in advance of any regulated coursing event. Data in relation to the number of hares captured along with tag numbers are submitted to the National Parks & Wildlife Service (NPWS) of my Department and this information is subsequently published on the NPWS website. Ear tags are removed prior to release. It is not possible, therefore, to know if a hare had been captured previously.
The post mortem results requested can be provided.
The licences to allow for the capture and tagging of hares by the Irish Coursing Club (ICC) under the Wildlife Act, as amended have been signed and issued for the upcoming 2024/25 coursing season. I have no plans to revoke this licence nor to issue multi-year licences at this time.
The NPWS is undertaking a project to review and update wildlife legislation. This is an extensive review and is a multi-year project. It is examining closely the effectiveness of our legislation in protecting wildlife and regulating activities that adversely impact on wildlife and biodiversity. A first phase of the public consultation was undertaken earlier this year. The matter raised will be considered as part of the review.
The ICC are provided with copies of the completed data fields on NPWS Ranger reports in advance of publication in order to deal with any discrepancies that may arise prior to publication.
