A significant concession has been offered by the Department of the Environment to the State's only stag hunt, which has been given a new licence.
Despite his own feelings about hunting, Minister for the Environment John Gormley had to renew the licence to the Meath-based Ward Union Hunt because there were no legal grounds for refusal.
Under the licence renewal granted to the Ward Union, which has 200 members and meets on St Stephen's Day, the hunt's hounds cannot be released until the stag has been captured after laying a scent.
The stag hunt reached national attention last year after a stag chased by hounds jumped into a primary school in Kildalkey and terrified schoolchildren.
Mr Gormley had wanted to force the hunt to run their hunts on pre-agreed routes, but the Ward Union said that this could not be done. "I wanted to have a prescribed route with maps. They said that they could not do that. It went back and forth. This is a licence which is the result of compromise," he said.
However, hunting supporters last night said the licence conditions were impractical because the stag would not move unless it was chased by hounds.
Gavin Duffy of the Hunting Association of Ireland also said there would be difficulties about capturing the stag before the pack was released.
"Without the hounds, how do we recapture a wild stag? We're really looking forward to Minister Gormley explaining to us as to how he intends us to drive a stag with horses and how to recapture it without hounds," he said.
Chairman of the Ward Union Hunt, Oliver Russell, said while the group had yet to consider the licence and its conditions in detail, the organisation had similar concerns.
Mr Gormley defended his decision, which he said had no implications for any other types of hunting, on the grounds of public safety.
"The reason why the stag behaves in such an erratic and unpredictable way is because they are frightened . . . You are talking about a very large animal running at very high speeds over hedges on to roads. You have to try and limit the unpredictability.
" . . . This has no bearing whatsoever on country pursuits. There is only one stag hunt in this country. You can't compare an animal the size of a stag to a hare, or to a fox. A fox runs out on to the road, it gets flattened and that's it. The majority of people up in that area want this thing stopped. I listened to pleas that this is a tradition, that there are people who work in this area and all of the rest and I tried to come up with a compromise that is the best compromise that I can come up with it," he told The Irish Times.
"Unfortunately, this is not 150 years ago when this thing started. The whole area is urbanised . . . I know for a fact that there have been a number of incidents where the stag has gone out on to the road [ and] into people's gardens."
The spokeswoman for the Irish Council Against Bloodsports, Aideen Yourell, said it welcomed the fact that the licence was quite restricted and the deer would not be hunted by dogs.