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

I thank the Deputy for raising this issue. It is important to be aware of the potential impact of the RHD2 virus and my original decision in August to suspend the licences to the Irish Coursing Club on foot of the outbreak of the virus, which was confirmed in wild rabbits and hares. The Deputy eloquently set out the reasons and my words.

As the Deputy mentioned, the disease was first reported in domestic or farmed rabbits in 1984 in China where it killed millions of animals within one year of its discovery. As the Deputy also mentioned, in 2010 a new and more virulent strain of the virus known as RHD2 emerged in France. It causes death. The Deputy set out very explicitly the symptoms involved which are quite distressing. Most distressingly, before the animal dies, there are fits and convulsions which are very upsetting to witness. The virus has been detected throughout Europe in wild rabbits and hares. As the Deputy said, the hare is iconic and native to Ireland. Should the disease prove to be as infectious or lethal here as it has elsewhere in Europe, the impact on the hare population would be catastrophic, something I absolutely accept.

RHD2 has been seen in wild rabbits in the UK for a few years and the brown hare has also been hit by RHD2 in the UK. A single record of RHD2 was reported from a wild rabbit in Cork in 2016 but no further records were confirmed in the wild here until last August, when two records came from rabbits, one in Wicklow and the other in Clare. The first positive report for an Irish hare was on 9 August, an animal found dying in the Wexford Wildfowl Reserve. There is no cure for this disease and although pet rabbits can be vaccinated against the disease, it has not been tested on hares. There would, clearly, be significant difficulties in vaccinating animals in the wild. There are approximately 250,000 hares in Ireland in addition to approximately 2 million rabbits.

Hares are solitary animals and the scientific advice available to me at the time indicated that the catching of hares in nets, transporting them in boxes and keeping them in confined areas like coursing hare parks can all be considered to increase the risk of disease spread. In these circumstances, and given my responsibilities specifically for the conservation status of the Irish hare, I decided to suspend the licences issued to the Irish Coursing Club on 9 August to capture and tag hares for the season until we had a clear understanding of the extent, spread and implications of the RHD2 virus. Members will be aware that licences under the Wildlife Acts are required by the Irish Coursing Club, on behalf of their affiliated clubs, to facilitate the netting and tagging of hares for closed park meetings.

Since these initial incidents, a request for public involvement has led to more than 75 reports of dead rabbits and hares across the country. Each report has been followed up vigilantly by the local National Parks and Wildlife Service, NPWS, rangers. RHD2 has been confirmed in four hares found in Dublin and Wexford and 21 rabbits found in counties Carlow, Clare, Cork, Kildare, Leitrim, Meath, Offaly, Tipperary, Wexford and Wicklow. Since the suspension of Irish Coursing Club licences on 9 August, discussions have been ongoing between the NPWS, the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine and the Irish Coursing Club on the impact of this virus. I recently issued revised licences to allow the netting and tagging of hares but there are specific restrictions and conditions explicitly attached to the issue of those licences. The capturing of hares and coursing activity is prohibited in areas within a 25-kilometre radius of where wild rabbits or hares have tested positive for the virus. New zones will be added on an ongoing basis if further positive tests arise and, in these new zones, the capturing of hares will have to cease immediately and coursing will only be possible with already captured hares, where the hares are certified in writing by a veterinary surgeon as being healthy, as such hares will only be released on foot of such certification. This has already impacted on some coursing events.

See this speech in context