Hare coursing clubs have been warned they will lose their licences if they fail to obey regulations when holding events.

Minister of State for Regional Development Michael Ring issued the warning in the Dáil as Independents4Change TD Clare Daly highlighted “barbaric” reports of cruelty to hares at coursing meetings in Counties Limerick, Galway, Offaly and Laois.

Ms Daly said in Rathdowney, Co Laois “there were horrific revelations that three dogs broke into the hare coursing compound and mauled and butchered about 78 hares in the course of this week alone, with the dogs having to be put down”.

She described coursing as “an industry out of control. It is derogatory to call it a sport.”

Mr Ring told her that officials from his department were at two of the meetings to which Ms Daly had referred and they had footage of events. “This is being investigated. They will be speaking to those involved,” said the Minister.

Ms Daly said she understood that the scheduled Rathdowney coursing meeting for December had been postponed but was being rescheduled for January. “How in God’s name could a coursing club allow something like that to happen?”

The Dublin Fingal TD said the coursing club did not have its hares protected properly, but the dogs were allowed to carry on.

Video footage

At a meeting in Loughrea, Co Galway, “online footage showed a hare trapped, pushed and pinned to the ground by dogs before a courser runs in to pull the animal’s battered body away”.

She said in Co Offaly there was online footage of a hare being hit by dogs, pinned to the ground and subjected to a long battering.

“In Co Limerick only last week there was an appalling incident of a hare hit by two greyhounds, desperately trying to escape, mauled, pulled away by grown men, taken and thrown into a wooden box in the middle of the field.”

Ms Daly, who last raised the issue in the Dáil in October, asked what the Minister had done to recruit more National Parks and Wildlife Service rangers because last year officials visited only 17 of the 75 official events because of a lack of personnel.

Mr Ring said a recruitment campaign for conservation rangers became due on November 11th and the first tranche of up to six appointments was expected to be made during the first three months of 2017.

Coursing season

But he said they might not be in place before the end of the coursing season which this year runs from September until the end of February 2017.

Ms Daly said that if the events at the coursing meetings in the four counties were verified the licences should be revoked.

Mr Ring said Minister for Agriculture Michael Creed had responsibility for animal welfare but he said “various rules and regulations have to be obeyed by the coursing clubs. If they do not, they will not get licences.”

He promised he would issue Ms Daly with a report of the departmental investigation into the incidents at coursing meetings.