Mick Wallace (Wexford, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I have sensed a certain feeling around this issue that city people do not really understand country people when it comes to coursing and how nature works and so on. I was born on a small farm in Wexford and I do not think it is nice to see an animal suffer. In the natural cycle, animals die and big animals kill smaller animals, but that does not make an argument for humans organising it.

When humans do not care much about how other humans suffer, through actions they supported or did nothing about, there is a problem. Society breaks down when we do not care what happens to our neighbour, whether the neighbour is next door or in another country. There is a thing called empathy and when we see an animal suffer through organised work by people, the lack of empathy is worrying. Somebody said that if we stop coursing it would hit the economy. That is an interesting point because I got into an argument in a pub in Ennis - I think the Minister of State, Deputy Carey, is from Clare - when a fellow attacked me because of our protest at Shannon Airport. He said that he sold sandwiches to the American soldiers. The argument developed. Despite the fact that 2.1 million people who were not carrying guns had been killed by the US, British and French forces in Afghanistan and Iraq in 15 years, our lack of empathy and a desire to sell sandwiches make us think we can forget about what happens over there, about the homes the bombs fall on when people are asleep, and about the fact that most of those killed are women, children and old men because the young people are out working or fighting.

See this speech in context