Clare Daly (Dublin North, Socialist Party) | Oireachtas source

I support Deputy O'Sullivan's amendment. I appreciate the point made by the Minister that he will look at this issue in the form of a code of conduct, but the problem for us is that what we are dealing with currently is an Animal Health and Welfare Bill where this practice, which is inherently cruel and inhumane, will be allowed to continue, while we are expected to buy into a promise of regulation and improvement.

Given the thorough knowledge the Minister has of his brief, I am sure we will be given regulations and that we will have an improvement on what exists now. The problem is that we have no input into that process. However, we have an input into this Bill. In that sense, the moving of this amendment is appropriate. Fur farming is a small scale practice here and is not of major significance. Often, the argument is put forward that there are serious economic considerations with regard to the need to practise this barbarity. That is not the case here as we are talking about just five registered mink farms, yet in 2006 approximately 170,000 mink were being killed here and 300 foxes.

There are issues with regard to the type of regulations the Minister intends to introduce. In Germany, there have been substantial improvements in regulations and while it has not banned the practice of fur farming, it has upgraded significantly the quality of life of mink. That is somewhat of a contradiction as mink do not have much of a quality of life, but at least they are being kept in better cages and are given some form of toys, better food and wire mesh floors have been banned. We have no such guarantees with regard to the issues here or in terms of the manner by which the animals will be killed. I would prefer an outright ban on fur farming as that is the only choice that is compatible with animal health and welfare, because the idea of keeping the practice of keeping and rearing animals just for their fur has no logical basis.

While the Minister said previously that there are currently no foxes being farmed in Ireland for their fur, there is nothing in the legislation which prevents this from happening in the future. We need more and this amendment gives us more and that is the reason I support it.

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