Paul Murphy (Dublin South West, RISE) | Oireachtas source

It is striking how out of touch with public opinion the majority of politicians in this House are. On the central issue of animal cruelty, as Deputy Whitmore has pointed out, it is clear that it is not only the Government, that is, Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael and, shamefully, the Green Party, that support handing over significant public moneys to the horse and greyhound racing industries, but also Sinn Féin and the Labour Party. Since we dealt with this last year, as this motion is an annual event, we have seen the appalling spectacle of prominent racehorse trainer, Gordon Elliott, posing for a photo while sitting on top of the dead body of a horse. This was another glimpse of the casual cruelty behind the airbrushed image of the horse racing industry. Once again, we are going to see an enormous sum, €17.6 million, being given to the greyhound industry for 2022. Nobody can pretend not to see or not to be aware of the widespread and well-documented cruelty within greyhound racing. It is an unavoidable element behind the industry Deputy Carthy described as a success story that should be celebrated. It has been two years since "RTÉ Investigates" exposed that the industry was breeding ten times as many puppies as it needs and that up to 6,000 dogs a year were being killed because they were not fast enough. Greyhounds are exported to places with few, if any, animal welfare standards and there are horrific stories of dogs being mistreated and, in many cases, boiled alive. There is a very deep cruelty involved in all of this.

I will make a brief point and call in respect of hare coursing. We need full clarity on what happened in regard to Loughrea Coursing Club, which had its licence suspended indefinitely. When I asked for the results of any post-mortem investigation into the deaths of the hares through a parliamentary question, I did not get an answer. We need full clarity on all of that.

The basic point, which the vast majority of the public would agree on, is that we would be far better off if we were to, for example, double the funding to the Health and Safety Authority by taking funding away from the greyhound racing industry. That is the choice the Government makes. It decides not to fund many very worthwhile things and to instead invest in an industry that is unsustainable and based on animal cruelty.

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