Éamon Ó Cuív (Galway West, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

When it comes to animals, prevention of cruelty and welfare is preferable to prosecution and cure. The fundamental basis of the law must be trying to ensure that as many people as possible do not get prosecuted because they do it right from the beginning. Obviously we must provide for the possibility of prosecution, but the effort should be in prevention rather than prosecution. I understand that this is becoming much more of an issue in farming. Farmers rather than trying to cure diseases have a much better regime of prevention, etc., which is the right way to go.

I fully support what the Minister had to say about animal fighting. The idea of dogfighting and so on is absolutely obscene and I fully agree with what the Minister intends to do in that regard. Anybody involved in that in any way should be amenable to the law and it is important that we go that way, although I know we will get criticism from the anti-hunting lobby and the anti-coursing lobby that the Bill does not deal with that issue. Even though I live in a rural area in that part of the country people only hunt for foxes that eat the lambs - I was involved not in the hunting but in encouraging people to protect the lambs in a farm I used to manage many years ago. It is not a part of the country where hunting and coursing are part of the local life. The Minister is right not to introduce a ban on hunting, fishing or coursing in the Bill. There are parts of the country where they form part of way of life and as long as it does not involve excessive cruelty, the Minister's approach in this regard is correct. I do not agree with the anti-hunting lobby.

If one tried to ban it one would only drive it under-ground. There is a balance to be struck and it is important we strike it in the right place.

I have received thousands of e-mails from people opposed to fur farming. I would prefer if thousands of people did not send me the same emails which I have to delete because they block up my in-box. I would like to hear the argument as to why fur farming is so different to cattle farming. Many of the shoes we wear contain leather. We must decide where to draw the line. I have not yet heard any overwhelming argument that fur farming is significantly different than chicken, pig or any other type of farming in which an animal is killed in a humane manner. From my reading of the Bill, the Minister is silent on that issue and does not propose-----

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