Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I hope I will do a good day's work in the House. It is true there are only five fur farms. However, it is not true to say this practice is deliberately cruel. This is a farming practice and like poultry or some pig farming, it is an intensive practice. I am not overly supportive of the industry, but I do not feel I should ban it. Quite a number of people here make a living from work linked to the five existing farms. If we banned fur farming, we would have to compensate these people.

I have thought about this issue and considered banning fur farming, but on balance I believe better regulation is a fairer approach to take for the people in the industry. As legislators, we must ensure we apply best practice so as to ensure welfare considerations are focused and that we put a code of conduct and licensing system in place that will reflect that. If this code and system make the industry uncompetitive, so be it. I am slow to ban outright something that I am personally not that comfortable with, but that is far different from deciding to ban something. I believe this industry has a right to survive and deserves a policy response that allows it do that. However, I have a responsibility to ensure that within that, we impose welfare standards within reason on the industry. We will do and will bring the code of conduct to committee where I suspect the Deputy will have an input into it. The Deputy should wait and see what we do in that regard.

One of the first things I did when I became Minister was to ask for a report on fur farming. I received that report and it makes a series of recommendations. Some Deputies have probably read the report, but the recommendations may not go far enough for them. It is a step in the right direction and we will now move ahead to put a code of conduct in place. Let us see then in five years' time where we are with this industry.

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