Rally against proposed stag hunt ban planned

MEMBERS AND supporters of the Ward Union Hunt are holding a “monster rally” tonight in opposition to plans to ban stag hunting.

The hunt, which operates in Co Meath and north Co Dublin, is furious at the ban proposed by Minister for the Environment John Gormley. They have accused him of vindictively singling them out as they are the only licensed stag hunt in the country.

National Hunt jockey Paul Carberry, who is a Ward Union member, wrote an open letter to Taoiseach Brian Cowen last week warning him that Fianna Fáil TDs would pay the price at the next election if the ban was implemented.

One of the speakers at tonight’s rally in the Trim Castle Hotel will be businessman and Dragons’ Den member Gavin Duffy who accused Mr Gormley of “having a death wish” towards the hunt.

“For people who live in rural Ireland . . . we cannot understand how the one hunt that does not kill its quarry – the purpose of the stag hunt is not to kill the stag – is being targeted in this way.”

A commitment to ban stag hunting was included in the revised programme for Government agreed between the Green Party and Fianna Fáil earlier this year. A spokesman for Mr Gormley said yesterday that heads of the Bill were already agreed by Government and detailed legislation was being prepared.

Mr Duffy, a hunt supporter, said the Ward Union had support from across the hunting community and the proposed ban was causing alarm among those involved in wider country pursuits such as “hunting, shooting and fishing”.

The union brought hounds to the gates of Leinster House, the Custom House, the headquarters for the Department of the Environment, and to Navan Racecourse yesterday to publicise the meeting.

Ward Union secretary Ronan Griffin said its members were “not going to stand for” stag hunting being banned.

He accused the minister of singling out the hunt after losing a High Court action which placed onerous restrictions on it, including one that the hunt could pursue the scent of the stag and not the stag itself, a move which was described as playing “football without a football”.

“Anybody who is involved with animals need to be very aware of the extreme animal rights agenda that the Green Party is trying to bring into this country,” he said.