POLITICAL FOCUS: Possible presidential candidate, and former TD, Heather Humphreys (Fine Gael)
Heather Humphreys shamefully opposed bans on both fox hunting and hare coursing. In 2013, she voted against an amendment to the Animal Health and Welfare Bill which sought to outlaw hare coursing in Ireland. She also voted against an amendment to the Bill which sought to outlaw fox hunting, terrierwork, digging out, ferreting, badger culling and the use of animals in circus performances.
As Minister for Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht, Heather Humphreys licensed cruel hare coursing. Her annual licence allowed coursing clubs to net thousands of hares from the wild and use them as live lures for greyhounds to chase. She disregarded appeals to her to refuse the licences. She also licensed the cruel snaring and killing of thousands of badgers (a supposedly protected species) as part of the Department of Agriculture’s failed TB Eradication scheme.
In Dail Eireann on 23 June 2016, she recommended that a bill seeking to ban cruel hare coursing be rejected. In a speech, she ridiculously claimed that hare coursing is run in a “responsible manner in the interests of both hares and greyhounds".
"The Irish Coursing Club has extensive systems and practices in place to underpin the welfare of hares and greyhounds involved in coursing and goes to great lengths to ensure the highest standards of welfare are adhered to,” she stated. “A monitoring committee on coursing is in place, comprising officials from my Department, the ICC and the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine, to monitor developments in coursing and in that regard, this situation is kept under constant review to ensure that coursing is run in a well-controlled and responsible manner in the interests of both hares and greyhounds...I therefore recommend to the House that this Bill be rejected" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ILMM28c0kRM
Read a transcript at http://www.banbloodsports.com/ln160623.htm#hh1
In Dail Eireann on 30 November 2022, Heather Humphreys TD voted in favour of the Horse and Greyhound Racing Fund Regulations 2022 which channelled another €91 million of public funds into the two gambling activities (€72.8 million for Horse Racing Ireland and €18.2 million for Greyhound Racing Ireland). In December 2016, 2017, 2019 and 2021, she voted in favour of the Horse and Greyhound Racing Fund Regulations which granted €80 million / €80 million / €84 million / €88 million to horse and greyhound racing.
In 2015, three weeks after issuing a hare coursing licence, Arts and Heritage Minister Heather Humphreys made her way to Birr Castle in County Offaly to attend a game fair which celebrates the killing of Irish wildlife. Minister Humphreys, who has refused to meet groups campaigning against bloodsports, was more than happy to perform the opening ceremony at an event which attracts those who blast wildlife to death, unleash lurchers and terriers to attack and kill foxes, use packs of hounds to terrorise and tear foxes apart and send ferrets underground to catch and injure rabbits. The Minister with responsibility for our Wildlife Act was photographed next to hunting representatives at the Birr Game Fair which promotes itself as being of interest to “the most discerning” hunters and shooters. Minister Humphreys was a “VIP Guest” of the National Association of Regional Game Councils (NARGC) whose members are responsible for the shooting of tens of thousands of foxes, deer, birds and other creatures.
In stark contrast to Heather Humphreys, confirmed presidential candidate Catherine Connolly TD is very much animal-friendly.
She voted in favour of a proposed ban on cruel hare coursing in 2016 and has voted against massive government grants to horse and greyhound racing.
During a Committee of Public Accounts debate in 2019, she stated: “I have a serious difficulty with greyhound racing”.
The presidential election is expected to take place on a date in the last two weeks of October.
Register to vote
https://www.electoralcommission.ie/register-to-vote/