CONTINENTAL wildfowlers were labelled "scavengers" yesterday at a Dail committee meeting called to investigate allegations made against them by the Irish gun club movement.

Mr Andrew Boylan TD (FG, Cavan Monaghan) raised the issue of a dead swan found some years ago in the luggage of an Italian hunter. He wanted more information.

The Minister for Arts, Culture and the Gaeltacht, Mr Higgins, said the incident had taken place in November 1991. The Garda, Aer Rianta, Bord Failte or Air Italia could do nothing since the hunter departed without the animal.

"What happened was totally unacceptable. Anyone who shoots a swan is not an appropriate person to be licensed to hunt in this country," said the Minister. Tighter controls on hunting by tourists would be introduced in the amendments to the Wildlife Act this summer, he told the committee on secondary EU legislation.

Tour operators and ghillies would be licensed under the new laws, he said, and penalties for offences would be increased. But Mr Higgins believed the claims of the National Association of Regional Game Councils against tourist hunters were exaggerated.

Only 3,000 tourist licences were issued to out of State hunters in the past two years while there were 77,000 licensed native hunters. Loss of habitat and changing farm practices presented a greater threat to species.

But it was live swans, not a dead one, which caused Senator Dan Kiely to complain to the Minister. He said there had been a substantial increase in wild swans in Kerry and farmers complained to him they were destroying land.

Mr Higgins said he could issue a licence under the Act to allow farmers scare the swans away.