YESPhilip Kiernan says Ireland's image as a decent and compassionate nation is tarnished by a cruel pursuit. NOKate Hoey says the ban in England has created a huge waste of money and court time without making foxes any safer.
YES:The tranquillity of the countryside is shattered as a fox squeals out in agony. The blood-curdling cry signals the end to another hunt outing as a panting fox with bulging eyes is knocked off its feet and eviscerated. The frenzied hounds are fervently urged on by a cacophony of hunting horns and hollering.
It's this merciless animal abuse that underlines the majority view in Ireland that fox-hunting is cruel and needs to be banned. It's the reason the Government must bring foxes to the fore in its update of our archaic animal welfare legislation.
The suffering is unrelenting in fox-hunting. As the chase gets under way and the hunters and hounds lock on to their target, the fox's desperate dash sends stress levels rocketing. The physiological effects, research has shown, include haemorrhage of the heart and lungs, congestion of the kidneys and a breakdown of muscle tissue, often followed by brain damage.
Far from displaying empathy, hunts boast about how they push foxes beyond the limits of endurance. One proclaimed that a fox was persecuted for three hours and 10 minutes while another described "pushing a fox for 50 minutes in terrible driving rain before catching it". There is more than a hint of satisfaction in the hunting reports that tell of the fox crushed under the wheels of a car or the vixen drowning in a slurry pit with hounds blocking her exit.
Foxes that manage to find refuge during a chase are only temporarily safe. The terrier work and digging-out occur when the depleted fox can do nothing but stumble down a hole in the earth. What happens next must be one of the worst imaginable acts of cruelty. A terrier is unleashed and viciously bites and claws the cowering creature into a corner. From above, hunters use shovels to uncover their severely wounded prize.
That an assault on Ireland's favourite mammal is carried out for entertainment makes fox-hunting especially despicable. Hunting apologists try to dilute the disgust with claims that they're eliminating a menace to farmers. However, the idea of the fox as an agricultural threat has long been dispelled. Both the Department of Agriculture and the National Parks and Wildlife Service concur, for example, that foxes play no significant role, if any, in lamb mortality. Eminent ecologists agree that this fascinating, social animal is the victim of smear tactics. And increasing numbers of farmers are coming to realise that it's the hunters, not the foxes, that are the real culprits.
One hunter admitted in the national media that hunts "gallop like cavalries over rain-sodden fields" and leave them "looking like venues of epic battles". Familiar devastation to farmers. Surveying their scattered livestock, broken boundaries and pockmarked pastures, they are pushing an equally pressing reason to ban fox-hunting. With bio-security a priority, and blinkered hunts apathetic about the spread of disease, landowners are demanding drag hunting as a compromise.
This humane alternative involves the pursuit of an artificially laid scent across land where the "hunters" have permission to be. Not only is it acceptable to farmers but it promises huge rewards for the Irish horse industry. A welcome outlet is created for the thousands who enjoy cross-country equestrianism but shun blood sports.
Suggestions that a ban would lead to job losses and the industry's collapse are completely unfounded. The outcome is much more likely to be the opposite. The benefits a ban brings were recently recounted by a Midlands horse dealer. "Although the introduction of the UK hunting ban was heralded by many as the end to the Irish hunter trade, its 'bad' effect went virtually unnoticed," he said. "We never had a better trade than when they brought in the ban." In a last-ditch attempt to gain a modicum of sympathy and delay the dawn of drag hunting, hunters lament that you can't teach old dogs new tricks, that a ban will necessitate the mass destruction of defunct hounds. It's a view unequivocally contradicted by a spokesperson for the UK's Council of Hunting Associations. Although disparaging "the chasing of old socks soaked in essence of fox" as "the uncomfortable in pursuit of the undignified", he concedes that drag hunting does indeed accommodate foxhounds, pointing out that "people who really know how to handle hounds are able to train them to do most things".
For the animals that suffer, for the majority who want an end to blood sports, for Ireland's image as a decent and compassionate nation, fox-hunting must finally be banned.
[ www.banbloodsports.comOpens in new window ]
NO:It is extraordinary that anyone is even asking this question. Not only because there has never been any evidence to justify a ban in terms of animal welfare, but also because any Irish politician need only look as far as England and Wales to see the cruelty, confusion and controversy a ban would cause.
I grew up on a farm in Co Antrim and have been a vocal opponent of the legislation to ban hunting in England and Wales. Make no mistake, the ban in England and Wales had nothing to do with the welfare of the fox. Hunting became a political football in a game played by many MPs as revenge for nearly every slight inflicted on them during long years in opposition - payback for the miners! Labour MPs became increasingly obsessed with the issue, so the Government set up an inquiry into hunting with dogs. "Hunting", said the Burns report "seriously compromises the welfare of the fox", which should be no surprise since the point of the activity is to kill them, but found that "insensibility and death will normally follow within a matter of seconds once the fox is caught" and concluded "none of the legal methods of fox control is without difficulty from an animal welfare perspective". The inquiry was therefore inconclusive and certainly did not sustain a case for making hunting illegal. Cabinet ministers, like Jack Straw, urged caution but they bargained without the single-mindedness of a zealot-like group of backbench MPs willing to blackmail the government over other controversial legislation. One colleague, Gerald Kauffman, even threatened to vote against the government, for the first time, on health service reform if hunting was not banned. He and others saw no irony in this ridiculous sense of priorities.
Eventually, after 700 hours of parliamentary debate and nearly eight years after Labour came to power, a ban on hunting came into force on February 18th, 2005. In the weeks before the vote, government had received criticism from every part of the media: from normally supportive left-leaning papers like the Guardian and Independent which held no brief for hunting but were appalled at the illiberal behaviour of parliament, to huge circulation popular dailies like the Sun and the Daily Mail.
So, three years on, where are we? Every pack of foxhounds that was hunting in February 2005 is still hunting. Some ride out with eagles or with just two hounds to hunt within exemptions in the Act. Others hunt trails of fox-based scent to recreate traditional hunting. Hunting rabbits remains legal, although hunting hares does not. All are absolutely determined that they will survive to see the Hunting Act repealed and are gaining support rather than losing it. More people hunt than ever before, and more than 300,000 members of the public supported their local hunt last St Stephen's Day. The law has been ridiculed and derided and the case for repeal is overwhelming.
The hunting community has now become one of the most active and effective political campaigning groups in the country. MPs in marginal seats who supported the ban were targeted at the last election, 29 anti-hunting MPs on the target list lost their seats, not just in rural areas but also some right in central London as hunts sent their supporters in to key marginal constituencies.
They are not the only losers. A few hunts have been targeted by animal rights activists and subject to endless allegations about their hunting activities. Police officers with many better things to do are being asked to make judgments about whether hounds are hunting the scent of a dead fox or the scent of a live one, or whether they are hunting a hare or a rabbit. A very few huntsmen have been dragged through the courts. One, Tony Wright of the Exmoor Foxhounds, was found guilty in the Magistrates Court and his conviction was only thrown out two years after the legal process began. Elsewhere the courts are tied up with arguments over every aspect of the legislation with huge waste of money and court time.
And then there is the fox. Is he any better off? Of course not. He is still legally shot, snared and trapped, and the car remains the biggest killer of foxes in Britain. Just as the campaign against hunting was not about animal welfare, so the ban is not about the fox. His life is no better, and his end often less assured as hunting left none wounded.
Of course the Irish Government should not ban hunting unless it wants to be seen as bigoted, biased and out of touch. A modern, liberal Republic does not need to follow the lead of the outdated and prejudiced class warriors on Westminster's back benches.
Kate Hoeyis the British Labour MP for Vauxhall and chairwoman of the Countryside Alliance
Join the debate at www.ireland.com/head2head
Last week John O'Sheaand Hans Zomerdebated the question: is aid channelled through African governments a waste of money? Here is an edited selection of your comments:
Most govenments (if not all ) in Africa are totally corrupt and uninterested in helping their people out of poverty. The vast majority of aid given to these so called governments ends up sustaining the repulsively lavish and excessive lifestyles these so-called heads of state enjoy while at the same time their people are starving and being wiped out by preventable diseases and war.
Giving aid directly to Idriss Déby of Chad for example is basically funding a new extension to his 15-bedroom summer/winter/spring palace or the purchase of another couple of Ferraris to add to his already large collection! The aid definitely doesn't go in to the mouths of his starving people. John O'Shea is 100 per cent right in his assertion that giving aid directly to corrupt governments is a waste of money.
It is high time the Irish Government started listening to what John has been saying for years and changed their foreign aid policy in line with the facts. Colin Thomas, Ireland
A basic principle of development should be empowerment. That means allowing people to make their own mistakes and to take responsibility for their own lives. It is true, many African nations have corrupt leaders, who viciously rob their people.
This is, at the same time, no reason to cease administering aid through these governments. Over time and with education and the laying out and fulfilment of community development principles, people will take responsibility and turn on those who have stolen and plundered their resources. Why? Because they will have ownership.
Mr O'Shea will have a world where we, the former colonists (though he would not define himself as such), send our experts into the field. We help the poor Africans in the most patronising way possible and then we go away having achieved in total nothing. Ownership for Africa means working with the leaders present. Bernard Cantillon, Ireland
It is very narrow-minded of people who always refer to most governments in Africa as being corrupt or uninterested in helping their people. For these people, Africa is a country, not a continent, which is very disappointing.
Africa has 54 countries. It is true that most leaders of these countries are corrupt, however, development aid to their governments is equivalent to a small percentage of their GDP, and John O'Shea needs to know that. Development aid to some degree helps, no question about that, but suspending it has also negative consequences on these countries.
Governments like the Irish Government have a role to play by engaging leaders in the South in a more proactive and progressive way, but also they need to engage NGOs in the South that are preachers of good governance for southerners, but operating on the basis of nepotism and are recipients of taxpayers' money.
NGOs are not the only solution to long-term development in the south. It is the governments themselves who have to think about their development needs and we engage with them through established groups and national NGOs.
I strongly agree with Hans Zomer and disagree with John. Mbemba Jabbi, Ireland
I spent almost two years working for an NGO in Africa and I agree with John O'Shea. I believe giving aid to international NGOs who work with local NGOs on the ground is the best way to assist development. Though, bear in mind, this can only be done if the country's government allows it. Also, I would like to remind people that western governments (and now I believe China) have benefited themselves in dealing with governments of Africa - mainly at acquiring natural resources at cheap prices. Eilo, Ireland
As an African living in the West, I find the whole premise of this debate patronising in the extreme. Africans do not need aid from western governments or NGOs - they need to have the debt cancelled. Africa pays more to the West in debt repayments than it ever receives in aid. Therefore, please tell your government to keep the aid and cancel the debt. Take your colonial foot off Africa's neck. Winnie, UK