Animal Welfare Bill deserves some attention

With the focus on our economic woes and the fiscal treaty referendum, the Animal Health and Welfare Bill has been virtually overlooked by the media, understandably, and may for that reason fail to impinge on the public consciousness.

It has already been partially debated in the Seanad and will in the coming weeks continue to proceed through the Oireachtas. The bill, according to the Government, aims to update and overhaul animal welfare legislation, the first such major attempt at reform in this area since the 1911 Protection of Animals Act.

Nothing wrong with that, in principle. And indeed the draft bill contains many welcome provisions, such as stiffer penalties for acts of cruelty and a hotline for reporting offences.

The problem is that the bill, in its present wording, seems to regard some forms of animal cruelty as heinous crimes and others as activities to be condoned and even encouraged in our society.

It rightly carries over the prohibition on cock fighting and badger baiting from the 1911 act it will replace, but it contains special exemptions for hare coursing and fox hunting, referring to these as field sports with “traditional codes” of practice.

The setting of roosters against each other to fight and inflict pain and injury is a cruel act, as is the use of a pair of dogs to attack a badger. But surely the setting of 20 or more dogs after a fox, to hound it to exhaustion and then tear the skins from its bones, is also a barbaric practice, not to mention the digging out of foxes and cubs that seek refuge underground, and the use of poles wrapped with barbed wire to drag them to the surface.

And while greyhounds in coursing are muzzled, they can and do maul the hares, toss them about like playthings, batter them into the ground, or otherwise injure them. Hares also succumb to the condition known as capture myopathy that may cause them quite literally to die of fright.

The reports filed by rangers of the National Parks and Wildlife Service for the 2011/12 coursing season reveal that hares were killed or injured at coursing events in ten different counties, demolishing the claim that dog muzzling protects the animal.

I find it disturbing and alarming that the first parliamentary initiative aimed at improving the lot of animals on this island in over 100 years may afford protection to these two appalling practices instead of protecting the hares and foxes that are on the receiving end of this organised and indefensible cruelty.

Cock-fighters and badger-baiters have few if any friends in high places and no political backing. One never hears of a TD or a senator putting in a good word for them, which is fine. But is the Government going to ban thug cruelty while enshrining in law the demonstrably cruel pursuits of people who just happen to be higher up the social ladder and politically well-connected? Gandhi said: “A nation can be judged by the way animals are treated”. I would suggest we can also be judged by the kind of politicians we elect. The proposal to exempt two of the world’s most barbaric blood sports from prohibition is a case in point.

John Fitzgerald

Lower Coyne St

Callan

Co Kilkenny