Mick Wallace (Wexford, Independent) | Oireachtas source

If I did not stretch it, I would be the only one in here who did not.

There has been talk of driving the sport underground. I remember when there was cock fighting and it was no problem to set up a cock fight around my area. It is banned now and I do not see it any more. It has not grown more popular. It has disappeared from where I live. On the question of driving things underground and making them unregulated, we argued two years ago for the legalisation of cannabis. The argument of the big parties was that could not possibly be done. We argued that because it is not regulated or legalised, people buy bad cannabis.

Last year, we brought the argument in here about sex workers who do not want the purchase of sex to be criminalised. They think that will make their lives and opportunity to make a living very dangerous.

The Government takes arguments as they suit. It might say that we all do that and it is human nature, but I find it hard to buy the argument that the unregulated nature of coursing might flourish and create even more problems.

I have not spent my life fighting for animal rights and have not been involved in the issue, as Deputy Maureen O'Sullivan would be well aware, but I have six cats at home. Sometimes they are chased by a dog. If I caught the dog I would like to give it a few clouts. If someone caught my cats, threw them into a cage and brought them off somewhere so he or she could let dogs loose after them, I will not say what I would do to him or her. I feel very attached to my cats. I would be alone in the house without them, despite what people might think.

Having a relationship with animals is good for people. It is great for children growing up to have a relationship with animals. It builds empathy and might help them not to support us supplying an airport for Americans to bomb the living daylights out of millions of people in other lands.

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