"This Christmas, hundreds of foxes will be hounded to exhaustion and death for sport...I hope the upcoming election yields a new crop of TDs who will give the animal kingdom a fair deal" - Read John Fitzgerald's Letter to the Editor in today's Irish Independent.
Animal welfare must be a key factor in election campaigns
Irish Independent, 23 Dec 2019
It has been a mixed year for animal welfare. In June, the Government announced a phasing-out of fur farming, in response to a 20-year campaign against this nightmarish practice which involves the unnatural confinement and cruel gassing of mink.
However, this Christmas, hundreds of foxes will be hounded to exhaustion and death for sport, and provincial newspapers will connive in the ongoing cover-up of what this medieval practice really entails. Happy-clappy colour pieces will appear underneath bucolic pictures of red-jacketed people on horseback setting off from village squares, fronted by tail-wagging hounds.
But we never see pictures of the hunted animal having the skin ripped off its bones, or of a fox being dug out of its underground refuge to be thrown to the pack.
I hope the upcoming election yields a new crop of TDs who will give the animal kingdom a fair deal.
John Fitzgerald
Callan, Co Kilkenny
ACTION ALERT
Contact Taoiseach Leo Varadkar and urge him to ban fox hunting in 2020.
An Taoiseach, Leo Varadkar
Upper Merrion St, Dublin 2
Telephone: +353 (0)1-6194020
Email: taoiseach@taoiseach.gov.ie, leo.varadkar@oireachtas.ie
Leave a comment on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/LeoVaradkar
Tweet to: @LeoVaradkar
Please sign and share our petition - Ban Blood Sports in Ireland Now
https://www.change.org/petitions/ban-blood-sports-in-ireland
Contact the Agriculture Minister now and demand that an exemption for foxhunting is removed from the Animal Health and Welfare Act.
Michael Creed TD
Minister for Agriculture
Department of Agriculture
Kildare Street, Dublin 2.
Email: michael.creed@oir.ie
Tel: +353 (0)1-607 2000 or LoCall 1890-200510.
Leave a comment on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/michaelcreedtd
Tweet to: @creedcnw
Appeal to all Irish politicians
Please join us in telling the Irish Government that it is now time to ban foxhunting. Contact all your local TDs and urge them to push for a ban on this blood sport. Visit the Oireachtas website for names of TDs and their email addresses http://www.oireachtas.ie/members-hist/default.asp?housetype=0&HouseNum=32&disp=mem
Write to your TDs at: Dail Eireann, Leinster House, Kildare Street, Dublin 2. Tel: 01-618 3000 or 1890 337 889. Please also arrange a meeting with your TDs at their local clinics.
Keep hunters off your land
If you are a landowner, make your land off-limits to hunters. Find out more about how to do this on our Farmers/Landowners Page - http://www.banbloodsports.com/farmers.htm Encourage all land-owning friends and family members in the countryside to show compassion and make their land a haven for wildlife. If hunters are denied access to land, the wildlife will be spared the suffering of cubhunting and foxhunting.