Mick Wallace (Wexford, Independent)
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157. To ask the Minister for Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht her plans to revoke hare coursing licences here, particularly in view of figures from the National Parks and Wildlife Service which indicate that during the 2013 coursing season over 100 hares required assistance, due to injuries sustained during races; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [5523/15]

Heather Humphreys (Cavan-Monaghan, Fine Gael)
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The control of live hare coursing, including the operation of individual coursing meetings, is carried out under the Greyhound Industry Act 1958, which is the responsibility of the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine. Hare coursing is administered by the Irish Coursing Club, which is a body set up under the Greyhound Industry Act 1958.Licences were issued by this Department in August 2014 under the Wildlife Acts to the Irish Coursing Club, on behalf of their affiliated clubs, to facilitate the tagging and capturing of hares for the purpose of hare coursing for the 2014/15 coursing season.

There is no current evidence that coursing has a significant effect on hare populations and the decision to issue licences took into consideration the favourable conservation status for the hare as detailed in the Report on “The Status of European Union Protected Habitats and Species in Ireland”, which was submitted to the EU in 2013. The full technical report is available on the website of the National Parks and Wildlife Service of my Department at . Hares can show significant inter-annual fluctuations in population and recent estimates indicate that the hare population varies from around 250,000 to over 500,000.

I am advised that during the 2012/13 coursing season some 107 hares were not released back into the wild after coursing meetings due to death arising from injury or natural causes. In overall terms, this represented about 2% of the total number of hares captured. The equivalent figure of hares not released for the 2013/14 season was 35 hares.