Paul Murphy addressed the Dáil to challenge the claim that hare coursing is compatible with animal welfare, arguing the practice inherently harms wild hares and must be banned. He summarised reports of injuries from the National Parks and Wildlife Service, questioned economic claims for the sport, and urged pressure on TDs ahead of the vote.
Summary of the address
Paul Murphy set out why regulation cannot erase the essential cruelty of hare coursing: wild hares are netted, terrified, crated and placed in enclosures so dogs can chase and injure them. He said that if animal welfare were truly the top priority, we would not be capturing hares from the wild and exposing them to this treatment.
What hare coursing involves
Murphy described how hares are caught from the wild, handled roughly and pursued by dogs, producing injuries and deaths. He argued the hares do not 'enjoy' the chase; they run out of fear, not sport, and the physical evidence recorded by the National Parks and Wildlife Service shows multiple incidents of hares being hit, pinned, mauled or found dead.
Evidence and political context
Murphy listed NPWS reports from the last season and challenged claims that coursing benefits hare populations. He addressed arguments about driving the practice underground, referenced polling that shows rural opposition, and criticised attempts to frame the debate as an urban attack on rural life. He also asked for sight of a cited 2022 economic analysis said to value coursing at 70.7 million euros.
Next steps and appeal
Murphy closed by thanking campaigners, urging continued pressure on TDs, and noting there is almost a full week between the debate and the vote. He encouraged activists to maximise contact with deputies ahead of the decision.
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Thanks a lot Chair and thanks to all the deputies who participated in the debate. Just to start on the point about the industry being, hair coursing being highly regulated and you know, why don't we give that more credit? Or link to that the idea that animal welfare is their top priority. Because at the essence of what hair coursing is, and you can regulate it all you like and we're in favour of more and more regulations of course, but the essence of it is going into the wild, capturing hares who are out there living their lives. They might be brutally short lives because of nature sometimes, fine, but they're out there living their lives. You go out, you make a lot of noise, you capture them in nets, you terrify them, you put them in little crates and then you put them in enclosures with a bunch of other hares. And then you allow dogs to chase after them and some of them are injured and some of them are killed as a consequence. Like that's what hair coursing is. So unless you regulate the hares out of hair coursing, which is what our bill proposes to do, then I don't see how you can claim that animal welfare is your top priority. You can make a case that you're concerned about animal welfare, but if animal welfare was really a top priority, you wouldn't be capturing hares from the wild and allowing dogs to run after them. Do you know what I mean? So let's kind of get a bit real about what sort of regulation we're talking about and what hair coursing is about. I also did want to just emphasise the point, I don't know if Deputy Aird really intended to suggest that the hares enjoy it. It's kind of what it sounded like. But they obviously don't enjoy it, right? They're not running for the crack. They're running because they think these dogs are going to kill them. That's why they're running. They don't volunteer to be captured for this. They try to get away. It's why you have to use nets. They're not happy to stay there. It's why they have to be in enclosures. It's very, very clear that if we could ask the hare about this, the hare would say no, no, I'd really prefer if you don't engage in setting dogs on me. This comes to the point again about nature being brutal and so on, which it often is. But the difference is that humanity has evolved. We're highly evolved. And we've evolved to a point of having empathy with each other, but also hopefully with other living creatures. And that's why kind of at a philosophical level, I think, and I recognize there are people with different opinions, I do recognize that and they're genuinely held and so on, but I think that it is fundamentally cruel and wrong for us to put animals through difficult, hard, damaging, sometimes death-causing situations purely for our own entertainment. And I think that is a view that is actually held by the majority of people in this country. But that's kind of philosophically why I think there's something fundamentally different about engaging in hare coursing and supporting the continuation of hare coursing compared to a hare getting killed in the wild. The point was also made that you have to be very careful to make sure the dogs and hares aren't hurt. But the dogs, and it was good that the points were made about the dogs, sometimes the dogs are hurt, and the hares are hurt. I mean, you can go through the reports from the National Parks and Wildlife Service, you'll see how many letters I get through here, just from the last season, going from A to Z. Abbey Dorney, four hares hit by dogs, one pinned to the ground. Abbey Feel, seven hares hit and three pinned. One of the pinned hares wasn't examined for injuries until the following day. Ardpatrick Kilfennan, three hares hit. A few days beforehand, individuals entered the hare park with the attempt to steal hares. Balbriggan, at least one hare hit and pinned to the ground. Bally Duff, one hare pinned to the ground and examined for injuries. Bally Haig, four hares were caught and pinned to the ground by dogs. Boris Allais, three hares suffered hits. Three were pinned and one hare was found dead. Cap O'Quinn, six hares hit by dogs and two pinned. One hare died from injuries. Cashel, a hare suffered bruising after being pinned to the ground by a dog. Castle Island, Mill Street, two hares hit by dogs. Another hare was pinned with such force that an ear tag came off. Cavan, Dungannon, Westport, five hares were hit and one was mauled into the ground. A hare who was mauled was found to have a graze on the back. Charleville and Mallow, can't read it there, three hares were caught by dogs and pinned to the ground. Look, that's C, you know what I mean? So look, the reality inherent in hare coursing is injuries to hares and some hares getting killed. Just to address this kind of rural-urban divide thing, we have an opinion poll, and you don't have to rule by opinion poll, you don't have to go with what every opinion poll says, but the opinion poll does say quite definitively there is not an urban-rural divide on this issue. The opinion poll says people in rural areas are more opposed to hare coursing than people in urban areas. So what's all this about? Suggesting that this is coming from a bunch of city-stickers who don't know what it's like to be in the countryside where a tiny minority of people engage in hare coursing. It is an attempt to defend the indefensible by just creating a culture war barrier and to say that's what's really going on here, this is about an attack on rural life. And I would say, I mean, look, the mass majority of people in Dublin aren't as separated from rural life as you might think. I mean, neither of my parents were born in Dublin, they didn't, they came to Dublin and then they had children, and I'm, so I'm a first generation Dub, I spent plenty of time in farms in my childhood, I have plenty of connections to my cousins who continue to live in rural Ireland. You know, this is not, Ireland is a small place, we're not so distant from each other, but I also, because the kind of related point is that unless you've been to hare coursing you really don't have a right to have an opinion about it. And I just, just think about that logically, like we don't apply that to other things in the world. You can know a lot about hare coursing by reading about it and by going and watching videos of what actually happens on YouTube. You don't have to go and see it. I made this point earlier on the radio, you know, I am opposed on principle to the death penalty. I've never gone in to watch an execution take place, but I know that an execution, that killing humans, killing other people, with the death penalty is absolutely wrong. And so I think it's absolutely correct for people to say I'm not going to hare coursing because I don't agree with what goes on there, and I have a right to have an opinion on it, and including to put forward legislation to ban it. In relation to the arguments raised by Sinn Féin, I mean the main argument seemed to be that to drive it underground, which is interesting because it kind of seems to accept that this is a bad thing, you know what I mean, that this is a thing that shouldn't be happening and should it be more of it if it got driven underground. I mean there is illegal hare coursing in Britain, but it's a much less illegal hare coursing than there was legal coursing before. So we have some evidence in terms of what happens. It seems very unlikely that by criminalising something you're going to create more of it, and then of course the question is, as the point has been made, the question is of enforcement. And then, like Deputy Coppinger pointed out, you know with the call for the study and so on, and look, the irony is that everybody knows that if Sinn Féin are dead in a few months time and they had a vote on hare coursing, as they hopefully will, and they'll change their position and the support of Ban on hare coursing, well then all of the calls for, you know what I mean, these new independent studies and so on will quickly be forgotten and they'll vote the correct way if that happens because their membership pushes them to do it. So really it is just finding justifications for not going in line with their membership, I would say, just assuming that the vote on fox hunting and hare hunting, hare coursing, would be very similar and not in line with the majority of their voters and people who are looking to the left who want a society based on human empathy and decency, which includes animal rights. Just to quickly address a few of the arguments that the Minister made. I mean, in terms of the evidence, the 2023 study from the NPWS, I think Deputy Coppinger demolished that argument that that in any way suggests that hare coursing is positive in terms of hare populations or whatever, where the reality is that they only found one of the coursed hares still alive and that's the reality. The reference was also made to the study from 2003 in Donegal, again a tiny population group. The main thing I want to finish on though, just a question to the Minister, this 2022 independent economic analysis for benefit of 70.7 million, I can't find reference to it anywhere. There's been plenty of debates in the Dáil between 2022 and now about hare coursing. Lots of PQs asked about what the economic benefit of hare coursing is. No one's ever referenced this study before and I heard it today from Peter Chapclear, it's obviously part of a speaking note and a briefing, like I would like to see this study, I've googled it, I can't find it whatsoever. I would be genuinely interested for this study to be published, for it to be referenced. Final thing is just to encourage people to keep up the pressure, to thank the campaigners in the gallery and with the benefit that we have almost a full week between the debate and the vote, so maximise pressure on the TDs.
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