Presidential candidate Heather Humphreys - who in the past voted AGAINST proposed bans on some of Ireland's worst acts of animal cruelty (fox hunting and hare coursing) - is now claiming that she abhors animal cruelty and loves animals.
Speaking on RTE Radio 1’s News at One programme on 3 September 2025, she stated: "I abhor animal cruelty".
In an RTE News interview on 25 September 2025, she was asked if she supports fox hunting. In response, she shamefully defended the cruel bloodsport, describing it as “a rural pursuit” and “part of rural Ireland”.
Heather Humphreys 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 licences 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). She also voted in favour of the funding to horse and greyhound racing in 2016, 2017, 2019 and 2021 (€80 million / €80 million / €84 million / €88 million).
In 2015, three weeks after issuing a hare coursing licence, Heather Humphreys (then Arts and Heritage Minister with responsibility for the Wildlife Act) made her way to Birr Castle in County Offaly to attend a game fair which celebrated the killing of Irish wildlife. Minister Humphreys, who 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. Minister Humphreys was photographed next to hunting representatives at the Birr Game Fair which promoted 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 every year.
In stark contrast to Heather Humphreys, presidential candidate Catherine Connolly TD is in favour of a ban on cruel hare coursing and fox hunting.
In June 2016, she was one of the 20 compassionate TDs who voted in favour of Deputy Maureen O’Sullivan’s bill which sought to ban hare coursing.
In May 2025, Catherine Connolly TD voted in support of the Animal Health and Welfare (Ban on Fox Hunting) Bill 2025 which aims to ban cruel fox hunting and the snaring and trapping of foxes.
In a 7 March 2024 Dail Eireann speech during a debate on the Nature Restoration Law, Catherine Connolly TD stated: “Nature is in dire straits and requires immediate large-scale intervention to avert extensive species extinction" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o1r5fGPVan8&t=9589s
The presidential election takes place on 24 October 2025.
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