Maureen O'Sullivan (Dublin Central, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I will go back to the monitoring of the coursing events. Through a freedom of information request, it has been found that there were some conflicts between the evidence given by the vets who were hired by the Irish Coursing Club and the rangers from the National Parks and Wildlife Service. The divergence in the evidence is being used by the Irish Coursing Club as a reason to ignore the ranger reports and not make the ranger reports available. Surely it is instead grounds for the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine to have its vets at these meetings so that the evidence can be collected there. I know that is not the Minister's Department but part of the problem when it comes to animal welfare issues is that it falls between several Departments and there could be a conversation between the Minister and the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine about the use of vets from the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine and there would be no conflict of interest there if, as I have pointed out, the reports from the National Parks and Wildlife Service rangers are going to be ignored.

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