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

Of course, it would be useful if any such allegation about trafficking were backed up by some evidence. If anybody the Deputy knows has any information, I ask her to get him or her to contact the Department or the National Parks and Wildlife Service.

The current position is that at a coursing meeting, the hares are tagged, normally, with an ear tag, in order to prevent them being coursed more than once a day. There would be a cost to coursing clubs, that we would have to bear in mind, in introducing microchipping and it is important that we collaborate with it in terms of exploring the possibility of bringing this in. Hence, the proposal to undertake a pilot project in co-operation with the Irish Coursing Club is probably the way to go for the moment in order to get its buy-in and the buy-in of everybody involved. Details would have to be worked out. An ear tag is readily visible; a chip is not so.

Over the years, there have been a number of allegations relating to the use of hares by coursing clubs. Some allegations claim that individuals catch hares illegally and sell them on to coursing clubs and that is something that we obviously want to stamp out as much as we can.

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