“How pathetic. A pro-foxhunting senator making personalised comments about TDs who oppose his archaic animal torture hobby” - Ruth Coppinger TD reacting to a sickening video of Paraic Brady - a Fine Gael Senator - sneering following the shameful rejection in Dail Eireann of a bill to ban cruel fox hunting https://fb.watch/Erygzk1b0W/
“Sad that taxpayers’ money props up proponents of animal abuse in the Seanad,” Deputy Coppinger added. “Well, FG Senator Paraic Brady, the public has been awoken. We’ll be back.”
In the video, Brady on horseback during a hunt, waves at the camera and says “I’d like to wish Ruth and all her friends - the 24 that voted against us last Thursday in the Dail - a very happy Christmas.”
These 24 compassionate TDs reflected the wishes of the vast majority in Ireland who want fox hunting ended and voted in favour of the Animal Health & Welfare (Ban On Fox Hunting) Bill 2025. They were from Solidarity – People Before Profit, Social Democrats, Labour Party, Green Party, 100% Redress Party, Workers and Unemployed Action and one Independent.
Despite majority public support for an end to fox hunting, Deputy Coppinger’s bill was defeated after 124 TDs (mainly from Fine Gael, Fianna Fail, Sinn Fein, Aontu and Independent Ireland) voted against it. Fine Gael, Fianna Fail and Sinn Fein refused to allow a free vote - TDs from those parties were told to vote against the bill even if they want fox hunting banned.
The voting down of the the bill means foxes will continue to suffer appalling cruelty in what is one of Ireland’s worst acts of animal abuse.
Foxes are chased to exhaustion by packs of dogs and when caught, they are attacked, knocked off their feet, bitten, disembowelled and pulled apart. Foxes who try to escape underground suffer further cruelty. The hunt’s terriermen send terriers down the hole to corner and attack the fox. They dig the clay away from above and the squealing and injured fox is then pulled out and brutally killed.
In a ridiculous Seanad Eireann speech in October 2025, Paraic Brady - who not only hunts but also shoots animals - tried to justify the bloodsport by claiming that foxes are a pest and that “when foxes are out of control in this country and the numbers are high, we see the loss of lambs, fowl and livestock”.
The idea of foxes as major lamb and hen killers has long been dispelled. Most hens in Ireland spend their short lives trapped in cages and crammed into sheds and will never see a fox, never mind be attacked by one.
In relation to lambs, research by Teagasc confirms that the vast majority of lamb deaths are caused by infection, dystocia, hypothermia and starvation. Teagasc stresses that farmers may "perceive predators (fox, mink, dog, etc) to be the main cause of lamb mortality" even though "it is unlikely that predators are the main cause".
In any case, no farmer should seek to solve any perceived problem by inviting dozens of hunters on horseback to hurtle heavily across wet winter fields, leaving pockmarked trails of destruction in their wake and posing a biosecurity risk as they traverse numerous boundaries.
Brady told the Seanad that foxes “are not pets” but are “vermin”. He appears to have a problem with them feeding their cubs, saying “they hunt for their young”.
Foxes are actually very much part of our natural heritage and play an important role in the ecosystem. They have a right to live free in nature and should not have to suffer persecution.
Brady went on to make an outrageous claim that children in prams are at risk from foxes: “Only then, when perhaps a child is taken out of a pram or a child is injured, will people understand what this is. This is not a sport. This is farmers protecting their livelihoods and what is theirs”.
This is not the first time that he has made unfounded claims about wildlife attacking people.
As a Councillor in August 2016, he maintained that a pine marten “killed two of his lambs and injured three others” and that an unidentified woman was bitten by a pine marten. The Irish Wildlife Trust condemned the report as sensationalist and “truly misinformed” and the councillor’s claims as “alarmist and irresponsible”. Pointing out that “rumour and hearsay is not fact”, the IWT emphasised that “pine martens do not attack sheep or people.”
The previous year, in a Shannonside Radio interview, Cllr Brady revealed that he is a gun club member and that he is concerned that pine martens are killing pheasants that gun clubs release to be later shot out of the sky. He claimed that pine martens are not native to Ireland and was later corrected by a wildlife expert who said pine martens are indeed native and are believed to have been in Ireland for 8,000 years.
In 2022, he disgracefully called on Longford County Council to write to the Minister for Agriculture to look at “exporting our pigs live to China as there is a huge shortage of pigs due to swine flu”. “The pig industry is on its knees in Ireland at this time. Pig farmers, especially, are on their knees due to the price of meal and the price of the finished product. It’s not sustainable at all at the moment for them,” he said. “There’s a need for the Irish pig across the world.” https://www.longfordleader.ie/news/local-news/818978/longford-councillor-calls-for-live-pigs-to-be-exported-to-china.html
ACTION ALERT
Help get fox hunting banned in Ireland
Please get in touch with all your local TDs and urge them to pledge support for a ban on cruel fox hunting in Ireland. Visit the Oireachtas website for contact details https://www.oireachtas.ie/en/members/tds/?term=/ie/oireachtas/house/dail/34
Contact the leaders of Fianna Fail, Fine Gael and Sinn Fein. Tell them that you want fox hunting, hare coursing and all bloodsports banned.
Micheál Martin TD
Leader, Fianna Fail
Email: micheal.martin@oireachtas.ie; info@fiannafail.ie
Tel: 01 619 4000
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/michealmartintd/
Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/@MichealMartinTD
Simon Harris TD
Leader, Fine Gael
Telephone: 01 281 3727
Email: simon.harris@oireachtas.ie; finegael@finegael.ie
X: http://www.twitter.com/SimonHarrisTD
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/DeputySimonHarris
Mary Lou McDonald TD
Leader, Sinn Fein
Tel: (01) 727 7102
Email: marylou.mcdonald@oireachtas.ie
Twitter: https://twitter.com/MaryLouMcDonald
Facebook https://www.facebook.com/MaryLouMcDonaldTD
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
Sign and share Uplift’s “Ban Fox Hunting” petition
https://my.uplift.ie/petitions/petition-to-ban-fox-hunting-in-ireland
Watch our campaign video
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OXtb77WD6yI
Please support our campaign with a donation
https://www.paypal.me/banbloodsports
http://revolut.me/icabs
SEE ALSO
“Ban Fox Hunting” bill shamefully voted down in Dail Eireann - how did your TDs vote?
https://www.facebook.com/photo?fbid=1176363414636259&set=a.603523135253626
Fine Gael senator Paraic Brady hasn't declared property – council won't release documents
https://www.ontheditch.com/fine-gael-senator-hasnt-declared/
Fine Gael senator Paraic Brady didn't declare €67,000 property sale to council – while sitting on social housing committee
https://www.ontheditch.com/fine-gael-senator-didnt-declare/
Fine Gael senator on agriculture panel didn’t declare more than €16,000 in farming income
https://www.ontheditch.com/fine-gael-senator-on-agriculture-panel/
Old excuses for fox hunting won’t wash – it’s time to outlaw barbaric bloodsport
https://banbloodsports.wordpress.com/2025/05/30/old-excuses-for-fox-hunting-wont-wash-its-time-to-outlaw-barbaric-bloodsport/
Máiría Cahill: Rural stance no big surprise, but Sinn Fein vote on fox-hunt ban a sly move
https://banbloodsports.wordpress.com/2025/06/01/mairia-cahill-rural-stance-no-big-surprise-but-sinn-fein-vote-on-fox-hunt-ban-a-sly-move/