Clare Daly (Dublin Fingal, Independent)
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12. To ask the Minister for Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht the number of hare coursing meetings that have been monitored by the National Parks and Wildlife Service since the beginning of the 2016-2017 season; and the resources in place to continue to monitor meetings for 2017. [31008/16]

Michael Ring (Mayo, Fine Gael)
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The control of live hare coursing, including the operation of individual coursing meetings and managing the use of hares for that activity, is carried out under the Greyhound Industry Act 1958, which is the responsibility of my colleague, the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine. My responsibility relates to the conservation status of the hare. In August this year, the Department issued licences under the Wildlife Acts to the Irish Coursing Club, covering its affiliated coursing clubs, to capture and tag hares for use at regulated hare coursing meetings for the 2016/17 coursing season, which extends from the end of September 2016 to the end of February 2017. While no meetings have been monitored by officials of the National Parks and Wildlife Service of my Department to date for the 2016/17 season, I should point out that only 8 out of a total of 70 scheduled coursing meetings have been held at this stage.

Hare coursing meetings are monitored, as resources allow, by conservation rangers of the National Parks and Wildlife Service of my Department in order to ensure compliance with the conditions of the licences. A process is under way at present that will allow for the recruitment of additional conservation rangers by my Department over the coming months.