Hare coursing is administered by the Irish Coursing Club, a body set up under the Greyhound Industry Act 1958, which is the responsibility of my colleague, the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine.
Under the terms of the Wildlife Acts, licences are required by the Irish Coursing Club, covering their affiliated coursing clubs, if they wish to capture or tag hares for use at regulated hare coursing meetings. Such licenses are issued on an annual basis by my Department. I recently gave approval to the granting of the annual licence to the Irish Coursing Club for the 2015/2016 coursing season.
There are a total of 26 conditions attached to the licences. Where resources allow, officials of the National Parks and Wildlife Service of my Department attend coursing meetings, on a spot-check basis, to monitor compliance with conditions on the licences granted by my Department. Veterinary officials from the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine also attend some meetings on an annual basis.
To assist my officials in the monitoring of these events, my Department also receives reports from the Irish Coursing Club Control Stewards and Veterinary Surgeons in attendance on the day of hare coursing meetings.
It is a licence condition that a qualified veterinary surgeon should be in attendance during all coursing meetings and that a signed report on the general health of the hares and on any injuries or deaths of hares that occur during the meeting should be submitted to my Department. While I understand that post-mortem examinations are carried out at coursing meetings in certain circumstances, it has never been a licence condition that reports on these examinations are submitted to my Department.
