The Irish Hunting Association strongly criticised the Irish Council Against Blood Sports (ICABS) after it called on the Irish Dairy Board to withdraw sponsorship of the Kerrygold Chase, which involves competitions between Irish hunts at the RDS.
The ICABS made the sponsorship comment on Thursday.
Mr David Wilkinson, of the Hunting Association of Ireland said at the RDS yesterday that ICABS "is nothing more than a cover name for a small bunch of animal rights activists.
"ICABS should be exposed as nothing more than a bunch of letter-writing cranks. There are almost half-a-million people involved in field-sports in Ireland and perhaps another half million working in industries related to field-sports which generate over £150 million annually."
He said recently ICABS was influential in getting the Mullingar Town Commissioners to pass a motion calling on the Government to ban fox hunting.
In a radio debate with Mr John Tierney of ICABS following that vote, he said, Mr Tierney had admitted that his organisation wants to see all field-sports banned.
Mr James Norton, secretary of the Irish Field and Country Sports Society, said unlike in the UK, there is no movement in Ireland against hunting and other fieldsports and any suggestion to the contrary is totally unfounded.
"ICABS are a very small group and, according to their account filed in the Companies Office, they have only 16 registered members," he said.
"We, on the other hand, have over 80,000 people involved in hunting with hounds," said Mr Norton.
The Animal and Plant Health Association yesterday criticised the Minister for Agriculture, Mr Walsh, for his failure in finding a solution to a possible ban on veterinary medicines for horses which will be imposed by the EU at the end of the year.
The new legislation means many drugs currently in use in equine treatment will be banned because of possible danger to human health. Mr Walsh had said that he was working with the EU Commission to find a solution at the next meeting of Farm Ministers in September.
He said it will create an animal welfare problem here if the current drugs in use are not allowed to continue and Ireland would put safeguards in place to ensure that human health would not be affected.
Mr Declan O'Brien, director of the APHA, said at the show yesterday that while he welcomed the Minister's comments, it was not good enough for him to say he is working hard to find a solution when his efforts to date have been so "half-hearted".
He said that ALPHA had been lobbying hard at European level to ensure a workable solution can be found to the problem. The show continues today and will conclude on Sunday evening.