Majority of the Dáil have voted against a bill to ban hare coursing.
The bill was overwhelmingly defeated by 125 votes to 24.
According to a report in the Irish Times, Fianna Fáil TDs voted in line with the party, including those who personally supported the legislation.
People Before Profit TD Paul Murphy introduced the legislation which aimed to prohibit the coursing of hares with dogs. To do so, he aimed to amend the Wildlife Act 1976 and the Animal Health and Welfare Act 2013.
Speaking on hare coursing, Murphy said that "in the last 15 years, more than 65,000 Irish hares have been captured from the wild and forced to participate in barbarism all because a relatively small number of people enjoy watching animals being absolutely terrorised and some want to make money through gambling on this torture."
"The Irish hare is a unique subspecies of mountain hare found only on the island of Ireland. We do not have many unique animals but the hare is one of them. Its cultural status was cemented for many decades on the old Irish three pence coin. It is iconic across Irish folklore where hares were often seen as spirits of the dead, leading to a taboo against eating them. We could do with renewing and broadening that ancient taboo by banning hare coursing too," he continued.
Fianna Fáil Dublin Rathdown TD Shay Brennan publicly said that he would stay in line with his party and vote against the legislation. However, according to the Irish Times, Brennan said that a number of TDs have been divided in their parties. He said a "growing number of TDS" are finding it difficult to justify a pro-hare coursing stance.
Hare coursing involves a hare being released and chased by muzzled dogs and the winning dog is judged to be the one who first forced the animal to turn. Animal Health and Welfare groups have said that the practice terrifies the hares.
Murphy also debated that the claim that coursing does not hurt the hares as the dogs must wear muzzles now. "First, there is the stress of being hunted with nets, captured and put into crates and held in captivity for months. Unlike rabbits, hares are solitary animals, so being kept in confinement with multiple other hares is extremely stressful and unnatural for them. During those months, they are trained, which causes them more stress and terror," he said.
"Then, you have the coursing meeting itself. Two dogs race to see which is the fastest to turn, pin or catch the hare, within which more than 4% of hares are killed. Many more are seriously injured. If they survive all of that, they are much more likely to die after being released back into the wild than hares that have not been coursed," he continued.
On Wednesday, Taoiseach Micheál Martin claimed that he had not seen the report which states that hare coursing contributes €70 million to the Irish economy annually.
The Irish Coursing Club and Niall Collins, a junior minister in the Department of Agriculture quoted this number and stated that it came from a report carried out by Jim Power in 2022, however when The Journal requested the report, they stated it must be seen by members first.
In response to this, Murphy said that it was troubling that they “relied on a figure from a report that hasn’t been produced, that cannot be analysed, that cannot be scrutinised”.
“[The report] was supposed to be done in 2022 but literally was not mentioned anywhere until last week. There were parliamentary questions asked in 2025 and this report was never mentioned,” Murphy said.
According to The Journal, Martin debated that if they were to ban hare coursing it would lead people to do it illegally.
