Fur faming move is a ’mockery of legislation’

The proposal by Agriculture & Defence Minister Simon Coveney to reform and regulate fur farming rather than ban it is typical of the Fine Gael led government’s "Pontius Pilate" like attitude to animal welfare.

He has all the relevant information on this ghastly practise. He has, like all the campaign groups, seen the disturbing film footage of mink throwing themselves frantically against the sides of their cages in a desperate bid to escape. Mink are creatures of the wild and captivity is wholely unnatural to them.

The Minister has already created so-called “codes of conduct” for hare coursing, fox hunting, and even the depraved practise of “digging out” foxes and cubs that seek to escape underground during a hunt. The wild dogs are dragged to the surface with the aid of terriers and occasionally poles wrapped with barbed wire. One may as well have a “code of conduct” for dog fighting or cock fighting as for such obscenities as these. They are beyond regulating, even if they happen to be amenable to glib whitewashing by their supporters.