Dick Roche (Wicklow, Fianna Fail)

I thank the Senator for raising the issue and also for his kind words. I will give him an assurance regarding guns in the park, as I understand how sincerely he is concerned about that matter.

The Wildlife Acts enable my Department to make orders providing for open seasons for the hunting of wild red, sika or fallow deer. In general, the open season for stags runs from 1 September to 31 December and for hinds, including antlerless males, from 1 November to 28 February. Some regional variations exist in Dublin and Wicklow. Applications for licences to hunt wild deer under section 29(1) of the Wildlife Act 1976, as amended, are considered by my Department from 1 August for the following open season. Some 2,215 such licences were issued for the 2003-04 season and 2,475 were issued for the 2004-05 season. The extent of the deer-hunting season is reviewed annually by staff of the National Parks and Wildlife Service of my Department, taking account of the conservation needs of the individual species.

Moving to the location of concern to the Senator, the position is that outside of Killarney National Park, wild sika and fallow deer can be hunted during the open season for deer, on foot of a deer hunting licence. However, with regard to red deer it has become clear that there is a large population of these deer over a wide area of County Kerry. Senator Coghlan may recall when we were recently in Killarney that there was a suggestion that the herd had gone from some hundreds, with its viability in question, to a figure of thousands. I will ask for detailed figures to be sent to the Senator as soon as they become available.