An Irish greyhound shamefully exported to a country with “DEPLORABLE” animal welfare was, Greyhound Racing Ireland is claiming, rehomed as a pet.
The 4-year-old greyhound, named Granard Swift, is one of numerous Irish greyhounds exported to Pakistan, a country which has been condemned for its appalling treatment of animals.
In January, Greyhound Awareness Cork revealed that Granard Swift had ended up in Pakistan. Ten months on, Greyhound Racing Ireland (formerly the Irish Greyhound Board) is continuing to claim on its website that the greyhound was “REHOMED-AS-PET”.
Details on the Greyhound Racing Ireland site show that while in Ireland, Granard Swift had €0 in prize money and that she was trialled three times at Limerick Stadium (headquarters of Greyhound Racing Ireland) on 9th May, 23 May and 11 September 2019. https://www.grireland.ie/results/greyhound-search/greyhound-details/?gid=Granard%20Swift
The Irish Coursing Club - which holds the greyhound stud book and profits from the registration of greyhounds used in racing - is also claiming that Granard Swift is “Rehomed-As-Pet”. It lists the dog’s county as “Tipperary”.
It is unclear what happened to Granard Swift after her final appearance at Limerick Stadium in September 2019 but three months later, a Facebook post by a coursing club in Pakistan confirmed that she wasn’t in Tipperary but instead was being used in cruel coursing 6,500 kilometres away.
The December 2019 Facebook post by Rajpur Coursing Club in Pakistan showed a photograph of the greyhound next to a trophy. It identified the greyhound as “Granard Swift, a fourth season bitch out of Adios Alonso and Granard Storm” and listed her owner as “Rajpur Kennels (Noon Group)”. It added that she was the winner of an “imported section” of Rajpur Coursing Club’s meeting on 16th December 2019.
The shocking revelation that a supposedly rehomed greyhound ended up in a country with little or no animal welfare legislation - casts further doubts on the credibility of the cruel greyhound industry’s rehoming figures.
ICABS has brought this to the attention of Agriculture Minister Charlie McConalogue and urged him to launch an investigation. “This is the latest in a long list of shameful revelations about the treatment of Irish dogs by the nasty greyhound ‘industry’ and must now prompt the government to suspend all funding to greyhound racing here and wind down what is an inherently cruel activity,” we told Minister McConalogue.
In 2017, as part of an appeal to stop greyhound exports to Pakistan, ICABS supplied the Department of Agriculture with a list of over 200 Irish-born greyhounds who had already ended up in Pakistan. Among them was Crafty Barrazo (records show that the breeder of Crafty Barrazo was former Irish Coursing Club president Brian Divilly). Sickening video footage showed this greyhound chasing a rabbit during a coursing meeting in Pakistan.
The Department of Agriculture was told about animal cruelty horrors in Pakistan, including stomach-churning footage posted on Facebook by a Pakistani national who was identified as the owner of greyhounds imported from Ireland. The footage showed a tethered pig suffering a sustained and brutal attack from two of his hunting dogs - https://www.facebook.com/banbloodsports/videos/1232955566819999/ With his leg tied to a post, the pig was unable to escape as the dogs bit into his underbelly and attempted to chew off his ears. A crowd of merciless bloodsport enthusiasts looked on as the doomed creature's pain intensified.
Also brought to the Department of Agriculture’s attention was a statement from greyhound campaign group CAGED Nationwide which noted that: "greyhounds bred for the racing industry are being forced to travel thousands of miles to countries like Pakistan where there are no welfare laws whatsoever to protect them from suffering and death."
Kerry Elliman of Birmingham Greyhound Protection also condemned the exports, saying that a contact in Pakistan told her that it's "dreadful for the dogs there, it's always mega hot, there's no animal protection laws, no rehoming programs and not many vets and the ones that are out there are hours away." He told her he has seen greyhounds "starved to death at the end of their careers".
At the time, then TD Tommy Broughan questioned the Minister of State at the Department of Agriculture about the export of Irish greyhounds to Pakistan "where the animal welfare regime is deplorable". He was told that "no greyhounds have been exported directly" - a clear attempt to sidestep the issue of indirect exports to the Asian country https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=1349081845207370
ACTION ALERT
Contact all your local TDs and urge them to support the Social Democrats’ motion this Wednesday, 25 November. The motion calls on the government to phase out state funding for greyhound racing Visit the Oireachtas website for contact details for TDs https://www.oireachtas.ie/en/members/tds/?term=/ie/oireachtas/house/dail/33
Find out more about the motion at https://www.facebook.com/HollyCairnsTD/posts/716318505656890
The motion is due to be debated on Wednesday morning at 10am. Watch the debate live at https://www.oireachtas.ie/en/oireachtas-tv/dail-eireann-live/
“Stop all funding to cruel greyhound racing - Support the Social Democrats’ motion” - Email all Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael, Green Party, Sinn Fein and Labour Party TDs to urge them to support the Social Democrats’ motion and bring greyhound racing funding to an end.
Fianna Fáil TDs
john.mcguinness@oireachtas.ie; niamh.smyth@oireachtas.ie; brendan.smith@oireachtas.ie; aindrias.moynihan@oireachtas.ie; michael.moynihan.td@oireachtas.ie; micheal.martin@oireachtas.ie; michael.mcgrath@oireachtas.ie; Charlie.McConalogue@oireachtas.ie; sean.haughey@oireachtas.ie; jim.ocallaghan@oireachtas.ie; darragh.obrien@oireachtas.ie; jack@jackchambers.ie; anne.rabbitte@oireachtas.ie; eamon.ocuiv@oireachtas.ie; james.lawless@oireachtas.ie; sean.ofearghail@oireachtas.ie; sean.fleming@oireachtas.ie; barry.cowen@oireachtas.ie; willie.odea@oireachtas.ie; niall.collins@oireachtas.ie; Robert.Troy@oireachtas.ie; dara.calleary@oireachtas.ie; thomas.byrne@oireachtas.ie; marc.macsharry@oireachtas.ie; jackie.cahill@oireachtas.ie; mary.butler@oireachtas.ie; james.browne@oireachtas.ie; jennifer.murnaneoconnor@oireachtas.ie; cathal.crowe@oireachtas.ie; james.oconnor@oireachtas.ie; padraig.osullivan@oireachtas.ie; christopher.osullivan@oireachtas.ie; paul.mcauliffe@oireachtas.ie; john.lahart@oireachtas.ie; cormac@cormacdevlin.ie; normafoley1@eircom.net; joe.flaherty@oireachtas.ie; Stephen.Donnelly@oireachtas.ie
Fine Gael TDs
JohnPaul.Phelan@oireachtas.ie; Heather.Humphreys@oireachtas.ie; joe.carey@oireachtas.ie; david.stanton@oir.ie; colm.burke@oireachtas.ie; michael.creed@oireachtas.ie; Simon.Coveney@oireachtas.ie; joe.mchugh@oireachtas.ie; richard.bruton@oireachtas.ie; Eoghan.Murphy@oireachtas.ie; Paschal.Donohoe@oireachtas.ie; Alan.Farrell@oireachtas.ie; emer.higgins@oireachtas.ie; neale.richmond@oireachtas.ie; josepha.madigan@oireachtas.ie; colm.brophy@oireachtas.ie; leo.varadkar@oireachtas.ie; jennifer.carrollmacneill@oireachtas.ie; Ciaran.Cannon@oireachtas.ie; hildegarde.naughton@oireachtas.ie; Brendan.Griffin@oireachtas.ie; bernard.durkan@oireachtas.ie; Martin.Heydon@oireachtas.ie; charles.flanagan@oireachtas.ie; kieran.odonnell@oireachtas.ie; Patrick.O'Donovan@oireachtas.ie; peter.burke@oireachtas.ie; fergus.odowd@oireachtas.ie; alan.dillon@oireachtas.ie; michael.ring@oireachtas.ie; helen.mcentee@oireachtas.ie; damien.english@oireachtas.ie; frank.feighan@oireachtas.ie; paul.kehoe@oireachtas.ie; Simon.Harris@oireachtas.ie
Green Party TDs
Eamon.Ryan@greenparty.ie; catherine.martin@oireachtas.ie; patrick.costello@oireachtas.ie; francisnoel.duffy@oireachtas.ie; neasa.hourigan@oireachtas.ie; brian.leddin@oireachtas.ie; steven.matthews@oireachtas.ie; malcolm.noonan@oireachtas.ie; joe.obrien@oireachtas.ie; marc.ocathasaigh@oireachtas.ie; roderic.ogorman@oireachtas.ie
ossian.smyth@greenparty.ie
Sinn Fein TDs
john.brady@oireachtas.ie; pat.buckley@oireachtas.ie; Sean.Crowe@oireachtas.ie; david.cullinane@oireachtas.ie; Pearse.Doherty@oireachtas.ie; dessie.ellis@oir.ie; kathleen.funchion@oireachtas.ie; martinkennysf@gmail.com; MaryLou.McDonald@oireachtas.ie; denise.mitchell@oireachtas.ie; imelda.munster@oireachtas.ie; eoin.obroin@oireachtas.ie; donnchadh.olaoghaire@oireachtas.ie; aengus.osnodaigh@oireachtas.ie; louiseoreillysf@gmail.com; maurice.quinlivan@oireachtas.ie; Brian.Stanley@oireachtas.ie; mark.ward@oireachtas.ie; chris.andrews@oireachtas.ie; martin.browne@oireachtas.ie; matt.carthy@oireachtas.ie; sorca.clarke@oireachtas.ie; roseconwaywalsh@eircom.net; reada.cronin@oireachtas.ie; pa.daly@oireachtas.ie; paul.donnelly@oireachtas.ie; mairead.farrell@oireachtas.ie; thomas.gould@oireachtas.ie; johnny.guirke@oireachtas.ie; claire.kerrane@oireachtas.ie; padraig.maclochlainn@oir.ie; johnny.mythen@oireachtas.ie; ruairi.omurchu@oireachtas.ie; darren.orourke@oireachtas.ie; patriciaryan975@gmail.com; pauline.tully@oireachtas.ie; vwynne@gmail.com
Labour Party TDs
sean.sherlock@oireachtas.ie; aodhan.oriordain@oireachtas.ie; duncan.smith@oireachtas.ie; gerald.nash@oireachtas.ie; Alan.Kelly@oireachtas.ie; brendan.howlin@oireachtas.ie
Irish Government grants to greyhound racing
2001 €11,777,583
2002 €13,613,163
2003 €12,837,200
2004 €13,382,800
2005 €13,670,000
2006 €14,012,000
2007 €14,572,000
2008 €15,257,000
2009 €13,625,600
2010 €11,852,800
2011 €11,460,000
2012 €11,258,000
2013 €11,004,000
2014 €10,844,000
2015 €13,600,000
2016 €14,800,000
2017 €16,000,000
2018 €16,000,000
2019 €16,800,000
2020 €16,800,000
2021 €19,200,000
Total: €292 Million (€0.292 Billion)
Source: Department of Agriculture
SEE ALSO
"Ireland to Pakistan: A one way ticket for greyhounds": A report by Stefania Traini of Italian greyhound protection group, Pet Levrieri, highlights the numerous Irish greyhounds now in Pakistan https://www.petlevrieri.it/en/articles/ireland-to-pakistan-a-one-way-ticket-for-greyhounds/
A Pakistani national who owns greyhounds imported from Ireland has posted photographs of himself posing with a handgun and a machine gun.
https://www.facebook.com/banbloodsports/photos/a.463548137094083/1260863400695882/
A photograph of the president of the Irish Coursing Club posing next to a representative of a Pakistani greyhound kennel has been deleted from Facebook.
https://www.facebook.com/banbloodsports/photos/a.463548137094083/1260101177438771/