New farmers’ group calls for foxhunt ban

IN RECENT weeks, there has been a lot of debate about foxhunting in this country in the light of the ban on it in Scotland and its impending abolition in the rest of Britain.

We farmers are trying to make a living from the land and we want nothing less than a total ban on foxhunting here.

The hunts make thousands of euro at our expense. They do this by inviting people to join at a cost of €500 all in to hunt with th em on other peoples' property, damaging land, crops, livestock and fences.

The newly formed Farmers Against Fox Hunting and Trespass (FAFT) wants farmers to join us in refusing access to their farms.

In the past, hunts have refused to observe the simple rules that they signed with the IFA. It is time to call a halt to their destructive gallop. The hunts have some neck inviting others to join them in forcing their way onto their neighbours’ land in defiance of farmers’ pleas to them not to do so.

If they wish to hunt they can do so on their own land or somebody else’s by signed permission, and then only by draghunt where a scent is laid in advance of the hunt to avoid trespass and damage to other farmers’ property.

With foxhunting virtually outlawed across the water, and on the way out in Northern Ireland, we appeal to the government to ban it here.

Philip P Lynch,

Farmers Against Hunting and Trespass

Gleann An Rí,

Mallardstown,

Callan,

Co Kilkenny.