Tom Hayes (Tipperary South, Fine Gael)

I am very pleased at the opportunity to say a few words on this Bill. I admire many of the Green Party's policies regarding a cleaner environment, recycling, carbon tax and many other areas. Its members certainly stick to their agenda and fight very hard. However, I am extremely concerned about this issue. I come from a rural constituency. I have a love of animals and a love of the land and I am aware of what is important to people living in rural communities. Everybody is opposed to the mistreatment of animals, regardless of the side of the House they are on or the part of the country in which they live. I listened to the many contributions to the debate this evening but my blood boiled when I heard Deputy Ferris talk about mistreatment of animals. I was annoyed to hear Deputy Ferris make those comments because of the parallel to the position of the McCartney sisters and the treatment of their brother in Northern Ireland. I will say no more.

I am extremely concerned about the agenda behind this debate. The live export of animals from this country has created huge buoyancy in our economy. For many years agriculture in rural Ireland depended on the live export of our animals. I heard spokespersons talk about the cruelty inflicted on those animals but on several occasions I visited ports to see the terrible treatment that was supposed to be meted out to them as they left this country. I went to Waterford, which is 35 or 40 miles from where I live, to see the animals being exported from there which we, as farmers, depended on in the harder times of the 1970s and 1980s. Those cattle, which we reared, fed and sent to the ports when the beef barons would not pay us, were treated in top-class conditions. I hear spokespersons on radio and television talk about conditions and animal welfare, and it makes my blood boil. That is why I question from where this agenda is coming.

In Clonmel, people depend for their livelihood on small farms yet every year there are protesters outside the annual coursing meeting stopping people coming into the area to enjoy a sport which this House and my party were proud to change some years ago under the then Minister of State, Deputy Deenihan, and the former Minister, Ivan Yates. We brought about changes in coursing. I attended six coursing meetings in the past few months and I did not see one hare killed. I love what is good in rural Ireland, whether it is coursing, hunting hares, beagling or whatever, and I believe there is a strong agenda to stop those sports.

If the Green Party is to make an impact as an Opposition party on the current Administration, it needs to think a little harder and deeper. I campaigned for the past three or four weeks in County Meath where the Green Party got 1,000 votes in the by-election. The green agenda its members were pushing was not strong in that constituency despite them having one of the best candidates in the field.

I am concerned about what is driving this agenda and about the impact it will have on the ordinary people of rural Ireland, for whom my party stands. I am not a spokesman for my party but I represent a constituency that is proud of its heritage in the coursing and animal welfare world. The Dáil should think long and hard before adopting this agenda. There is some merit in what is being proposed by the Green Party but I am seriously concerned about the agenda being followed.

I welcome the opportunity to make these brief comments because I speak on behalf of many people who love rural Ireland, the sports we stand for and, above all, who love the animals and the land of Ireland.

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