Josepha Madigan (Dublin Rathdown, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

In October 2017 my Department issued a revised licence in relation to coursing under section 34 of the Wildlife Act 1976, as amended, to the Irish Coursing Club, ICC, on behalf of its affiliated clubs, which included new and revised conditions relating to the reporting of coursing trials. One such condition stipulates that an individual coursing club may hold no more than one trial session but that in exceptional circumstances the ICC may apply to hold a second day’s trial.

My Department received a request from the ICC to hold a second day’s trial in relation to the three day National Coursing Meeting which was held in Clonmel on 10, 11 and 12 February last. In granting the request for a second day’s trial my Department took into account the fact that the national coursing meeting in Clonmel is the largest coursing meeting held during the season with some 160 hares run during the three day meeting. I accepted the view that it would not have been possible to complete trails for this number of hares in one day at the time of year in February due to limited daylight. In addition, taking account of safety and welfare reasons, it was considered that a second day’s trial was needed in order to promote the familiarisation of hares with the field and with the most direct route to the escape.

It is important to stress that until my Department issued a revised licence last year, it would have been possible for every single club in the country to hold trials over as many days as they wanted. Clonmel was the only application that my Department received for a second day's trail since the licence to the ICC was amended in October last year. The current 2017-18 coursing season ended on 28 February last.

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