Countryside Alliance Ireland - love the countryside

Countryside Alliance Ireland is providing full support and assistance to The Wild Deer Association of Ireland (WDAI) who is one of the main organisations representing the country’s deer hunters, in our quest to have this draconian Bill defeated.  Urgent meetings have been sought with the Minister to discuss this proposed ban on deer hunting that has been slipped into the recently published Wildlife (Amendment) Bill 2010.

As expected, the Bill contains the commitment in the Renegotiated Programme for Government to ban the Ward Union Staghounds.  However, it has become clear that the Bill also proposes new restrictions on deer stalking to make it an offence to use two or more dogs while hunting deer with rifles.  

It is a recognised and long established procedure that, where two or three stalkers hunt together, they each could be accompanied by a tracker dog while deer stalking.  The dogs are used for the humane purpose of rapidly locating a wounded animal so that it can be reached quickly; not for tracking live deer.  It is a requirement of hunting leases issued by Coillte that a hunter is either accompanied by a tracking dog or that they have ready access to a tracking dog when stalking deer.

Lyall Plant, Chief Executive of Countryside Alliance Ireland said; "The Minister must not proceed with the introduction of this Bill in the Dáil until such time as he has conducted a full Regulatory Impact Assessment as required under the Guidelines from the Taoiseach’s Department, implementing recommendations made to the Government by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD)".

It is clearly evident that this proposed Bill is being used as a vehicle to further damage or severely restrict country sports and we urge the Minister to withdraw the Bill immediately.  The Minister is using one issue to deal a blow to other country sports and thereby fulfil his party policy of no country sports in Ireland.