"The only way at this stage is a total ban on greyhound racing" - Actress and animal rights activist Pauline McLynn on the Sue Nunn Show on KCLR on Wednesday (3 July 2019).
"Greyhounds are some of the most beautiful hounds in the world and the most sinned against," Pauline stated during a powerful interview on the show. "In Ireland, greyhounds and their progeny and lurchers and all the mixes - they are the most dumped dogs and the most cruelly treated. That's in the greyhound industry downwards."
She added: "As I've gotten older, I've started to question things like where does my food come from and why is there so much cruelty in Ireland against animals."
She condemned greyhound racing as "an incredibly cruel sport", saying "it's systemically cruel".
"I hope that people in Ireland are very well apprised of the fact that we are propping [the greyhound industry] up to the tune of €16.8 million a year which is over €320,000 every week," she said. "This is a dying industry - if it were a commercial enterprise, it would have been shut down long ago...People power is kicking in. People want this to stop and they want the waste of their money stopped. And they are saying to the companies who sponsor it to stop."
Dismissing claims by the Department of Agriculture that the industry can be cleaned up, she said that "the Irish Greyhound Board has had 100 years to get this industry proper and it seems to me suspicious that suddenly we're getting a whole plethora of promises about what's going to happen simply on the back of a rather brilliant documentary on RTE last week. They've had 100 years and it hasn't happened and I don't buy that it will happen."
She went on to denounce the shameful exports of greyhounds to countries with no animal welfare laws - "We saw on the programme where dogs are sent to be bred to an inch of their lives in Pakistan, China - they'll often end up in the meat trade - brutal deaths, one way or the other. The response from the Irish end of things is that once they leave the shores of this country, they are no longer our problem. And that's leading to over-breeding and that's leading to the fact that over 6,000 - and I would suggest it's more like 10,000 - are killed every year - that we know of (the registered ones) - for being too slow."
She called for an end to the massive government grants to greyhound racing - "I think that a start would be to remove the government's support. I think that after that, it's not possible for [the industry] to continue because it doesn't make sense commercially. The only way at this stage is a total ban on greyhound racing."
Praising the "RTE Investigates: Greyhounds Running for their lives" programme and speaking about all the horrors highlighted, Pauline told listeners that there are even more shocking instances of animal cruelty happening in Ireland - "the blooding of coursing dogs, for instance".
She spoke in support of a ban on cruel hare coursing and expressed hope that a 2019-2010 licence for coursing would be refused.
"Coursing should be banned," she stated. "The hare is an iconic and indeed 'protected species' in Ireland but because of a loophole [it continues]. I'm very ashamed to say that Josepha Madigan's department - she issues the licence to course and to hunt these iconic hares. She is Minister for Culture, Heritage and the Gaeltacht and she is, at the moment, making her mind up about whether to re-issue that licence this year and I hope she doesn't. I hope she will act compassionately..."
A big thank you to Pauline McLynn for speaking so strongly for an end to greyhound racing and hare coursing in Ireland.
Find out more about Pauline on her official website
http://paulinemclynn.com
ICABS ACTION ALERT
WATCH RTE Investigates: Greyhounds Running for Their Lives
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZYTb2qBjlMM
Demand an immediate end to all state funding to the cruel greyhound industry, in which 6,000 dogs are killed every year because they're not fast enough to win.
Since 2001, the Irish Government has paid out around a quarter of a billion euros of taxpayers' money to greyhound racing, including €16.8 million for 2019. Following the shocking RTE Investigates revelations about cruelty and killing, it is time for these grants to be finally ended. Not a single cent more of public funds should end up in this shameful industry.
Email “I support an end to all state funding to the cruel greyhound industry and a ban on hare coursing” to all Fine Gael TDs
maria.bailey@oireachtas.ie; sean.barrett@oireachtas.ie; pat.breen@oireachtas.ie; colm.brophy@oireachtas.ie; richard.bruton@oireachtas.ie; peter.burke@oireachtas.ie; catherine.byrne@oireachtas.ie; Ciaran.Cannon@oireachtas.ie; joe.carey@oireachtas.ie; corcorankennedy@eircom.net; Simon.Coveney@oireachtas.ie; michael.creed@oireachtas.ie; michael.darcy@oireachtas.ie; Jim.Daly@oireachtas.ie; john.deasy@oireachtas.ie; Pat.Deering@oireachtas.ie; Regina.Doherty@oireachtas.ie; Paschal.Donohoe@oireachtas.ie; andrew.doyle@oireachtas.ie; bernard.durkan@oireachtas.ie; damien.english@oireachtas.ie; Alan.Farrell@oireachtas.ie; frances.fitzgerald@oir.ie; peterm.fitzpatrick@oireachtas.ie; charles.flanagan@oireachtas.ie; Brendan.Griffin@oireachtas.ie; Simon.Harris@oireachtas.ie; Martin.Heydon@oireachtas.ie; Heather.Humphreys@oireachtas.ie; paul.kehoe@oireachtas.ie; enda.kenny@oireachtas.ie; Sean.Kyne@oireachtas.ie; josepha.madigan@oireachtas.ie; helen.mcentee@oireachtas.ie; joe.mchugh@oireachtas.ie; Tony.McLoughlin@oireachtas.ie; Mary.MitchellOConnor@oireachtas.ie; Dara.Murphy@oireachtas.ie; Eoghan.Murphy@oireachtas.ie; hildegarde.naughton@oireachtas.ie; tom.neville@limerick.ie; michael.noonan@oireachtas.ie; kate.oconnell@oireachtas.ie; Patrick.O'Donovan@oireachtas.ie; fergus.odowd@oireachtas.ie; JohnPaul.Phelan@oireachtas.ie; michael.ring@oireachtas.ie; noel@noelrock.ie; david.stanton@oir.ie; leo.varadkar@oireachtas.ie
Email “I support an end to all state funding to the cruel greyhound industry and a ban on hare coursing” to all Fianna Fáil TDs
billykelleher@eircom.net;sean.haughey@oireachtas.ie;Bobby.Aylward@oireachtas.ie;brendan.smith@oireachtas.ie;johncurranff@gmail.com;Charlie.McConalogue@oireachtas.ie;michael.mcgrath@oireachtas.ie;sean.ofearghail@oireachtas.ie;john.brassil@oireachtas.ie;darragh.obrien@oireachtas.ie;eamon.ocuiv@oireachtas.ie;jackie.cahill@oireachtas.ie;john.mcguinness@oireachtas.ie;mattie.mcgrath@oireachtas.ie;micheal.martin@oireachtas.ie;michael.moynihan.td@oireachtas.ie;niall.collins@oireachtas.ie;coper@eircom.net;Robert.Troy@oireachtas.ie;thomas.byrne@oireachtas.ie;timmy.dooley@oireachtas.ie;barry.cowen@oireachtas.ie;fiona@fiona.ie;declan.breathnach@oireachtas.ie;mary.butler@oireachtas.ie;kevin.okeeffe@oireachtas.ie;dara.calleary@oireachtas.ie;escanlonmcc@eircom.net;sean.fleming@oireachtas.ie;niamh.smyth@oireachtas.ie;james@jameslawless.ie;shane.cassells@oireachtas.ie;willie.odea@oireachtas.ie;margaret.murphyomahony@oireachtas.ie;anne.rabbitte@oireachtas.ie;eugene.murphy@oireachtas.ie;jack.chambers@outlook.com;james.browne@oireachtas.ie;john.lahart@oireachtas.ie;lisa.chambers@oireachtas.ie;marc.macsharry@oireachtas.ie;jim.ocallaghan@oireachtas.ie;pat.casey@oireachtas.ie;aindrias.moynihan@oireachtas.ie;frankorourke1@gmail.com
Visit the Oireachtas website for more telephone numbers and other contact details for TDs
https://www.oireachtas.ie/en/members/tds/?term=/ie/oireachtas/house/dail/32
Contact the Minister for Culture, Heritage and the Gaeltacht, Josepha Madigan, and urge her not to issue a licence for another season of cruel hare coursing.
Email "Stop the cruelty. Please don't grant a 2019-20 coursing licence" to
josepha.madigan@oireachtas.ie or
Phone: +353 (0)1 631 3800
Leave a comment on Facebook: https://facebook.com/JosephaMadiganFG
Tweet to: @josephamadigan
Sign the petition: IRELAND BAN CRUEL HARE COURSING
www.change.org/p/ireland-ban-cruel-hare-coursing