Official Report: Minutes of Evidence

The Chairperson (Ms D Armstrong): I welcome, from the NoISE (Northern Ireland Says Enough) Coalition, Steven McGonigal, chairman, and Dr Cathal Cassidy, founder chairman. We also have Dr Aoife Byrne, member, and Dr Nick Fox OBE, member. You are all very welcome this morning. Please brief the Committee.

Mr Steven McGonigal (NoISE Coalition): I will hand you over to Cathal for his presentation.

Dr Cathal Cassidy (NoISE Coalition): Bear with me for a second while I open up my short presentation. There we go.

Madam Chairman and honourable members of the Committee, we are grateful to have been granted this session to present evidence to the Committee on the Bill to ban hunting with dogs. I am Cathal Cassidy. I have worked with hunting dogs and working dogs all my adult life. That is the basis on which I am involved and presenting today. I am also a psychiatrist with 45 years' experience of working in health services in various places.

Today, we will present objective scientific evidence on animal welfare and hunting with dogs. We are particularly interested in addressing the concepts of suffering and cruelty and comparing hunting with dogs with other methods of pest control, such as trapping, shooting, poisoning or gassing. To that end, because we are presenting objective scientific evidence, I have brought a panel of experts with me. Dr Nick Fox is an academic researcher, zoologist and conservationist. He has completed a lot of research and published a lot on the subject of hunting in general, including on hunting ethics and hunting with dogs. His latest publication, 'Hunting Ethics', which was published last year, is one of the most authoritative recent texts on hunting ethics. Steven McGonigal is an accountant by training. He has spent most of his adult life in a pest management business. He is a published author who publishes widely and internationally on the subject of pest management with dogs — natural methods of pest management rather than artificial methods such as poisoning or shooting. Dr Aoife Byrne is a practising vet and honorary secretary of the Veterinary Association for Wildlife Management (VAWM), which specialises in issues of conservation and in assessment of the matters that we will talk about today.

We begin with the end in mind. The Committee will see from the slide that our core message is that the objective scientific evidence does not demonstrate that prohibition would improve overall animal welfare, and we will look at that. We will not address issues such as the legalities or the social, economic or community aspects of the Bill, as other people will do that better than we can. We will focus on objective evidence. We will also not make a case for any minor amendments to the Bill, as we will very much be pointing out that the Bill is not fit for purpose and that the objective scientific evidence is quite contrary to what it claims.

We have referred to the alternative to objective scientific evidence being "campaign pressure" and "sentiment", and we believe that a lot of the Bill operates on campaign pressure and sentiment. We talk about "overall animal welfare". It is important to make the distinction that overall animal welfare means the population — the numbers of a species — the health of a species and the impact that that species has on other species, as opposed to focusing on the welfare issues of an individual animal.

The next slide refers to the evidential test. What is the evidential test? The evidential test that we want to look at is the overall animal welfare of the whole population of a species. We want to use comparative evidence. What we mean by "comparative evidence" is that the allegation of the cruelty and suffering of hunting with dogs needs to be compared with other methods, such as shooting, trapping, snaring, poisoning and gassing. We are joined by some of the specialists who have researched all of that, and you can question them today. The evidential test is objective scientific evidence versus polling and campaign pressure. What weight should be given to each of those aspects?

Let us look at polling and campaign pressure. What evidential weight should be given to public opinion, surveying and polling? Is it enough to supply the evidence that is needed for criminal prohibition? I read that Mark Allen presented statistics and surveys to the Committee recently, and that is a good place for me to illustrate this. The 2024-25 DAERA consultation had approximately 12,000 responses, 7,147 of which — 60% — were from outside Northern Ireland. There were 4,864 responses from Northern Ireland, which is the equivalent of 0·25% of the Northern Ireland population. Approximately 3,500 responses, it is claimed, were in support of a ban, which is the equivalent of 0·18% of the Northern population — less than one fifth of 1% of the Northern Ireland population. Yet the headline claims were that 72% of the population supported a ban.

What is that, do we think? What comes to mind is this: is it, at best, sophistry, from the Greek "sophos", which is defined as emotionally charged, flawed logic; or, at worst, does it bring to mind the phrase about statistics popularised by Mark Twain, which is "Lies, damned lies and statistics"? What we are witnessing is the persuasive power of numbers to mislead. I have mentioned one study; there is no time to go through other surveys and polls. There have been LucidTalk and Survation polls, but the representativeness, selection bias and reliability of all those surveys need to be looked at closely. In fact, we wrote to LucidTalk to get some of the details of one of its surveys, but its director said that LucidTalk would not release them and advised us to write to the Northern Ireland and Scotland director of the League Against Cruel Sports (LACS). It, in turn, refused to give us any information and told us that it would be reserved and revealed to this Committee. We got nowhere with that, and we need to go into those details.

Let us look at comparative animal welfare. Hunting with dogs cannot be assessed in isolation. It must be compared with the other methods of pest management. If hunting with dogs is banned, pest management is displaced into the other methods. Each practical method needs to be compared by rating it according to the Agreement on International Humane Trapping Standards (AIHTS) criteria. That is a weighting tool that is used by researchers to rate the amount of cruelty or suffering that is experienced by various pest or wildlife management methods.

It is rated on selectivity, which means natural selection. Does it select the weak and the diseased, while the healthy animal survives? Is there wounding for prolonged life while the animal actually escapes, as can happen in shooting? What is the duration of pursuit? What is the catch-to-kill interval? From the point at which the pest species is caught, how long does it take to die? We will see shortly how hunting with dogs compares with other methods.

Of course, we need to look at the terrain and field conditions. Mountainous and rocky places are suited to some methods of pest management but not others.

The issue is whether replacement methods can produce better welfare outcomes. Would the Bill reduce overall suffering and cruelty, compared with other methods that would replace dogs?

Dr Aoife Byrne is a representative of the Veterinary Association of Wildlife Management, which is a large group of vets with a specialism in the area. The position of VAWM is:

What is meant by "Natural hunting with dogs" is that the weakest and the diseased animal is selected, and usually the most vigorous and healthy animal survives. That is what is meant by natural selection. Dr Fox rates all the different methods in his work. It turns out the catch-to-kill interval of gazehounds and scent hounds is between zero seconds and five seconds and that their maiming rate is zero, so no animal escapes wounded to suffer prolonged suffering in the undergrowth. We need to test the evidence against equally robust objective and comparative evidence.

The two-dog limit is mentioned a lot in the Bill. What is that arbitrary figure based on? What evidence establishes that two dogs provide the better welfare outcome? Peer-reviewed research in Scotland concludes the opposite: Naylor and Knott found that a pack of dogs produced better welfare and efficiency in pest management than two dogs. They also found that a pair of foxhounds flushed 56% fewer foxes than a pack and that active pursuit was estimated to last five times longer with a pair. The longer the pursuit and repeated pursuit, the more stress to the wildlife and the pest species.

Population welfare and conservation is the idea of the overall welfare of the species, rather than that of the individual animal. What is involved is the numbers of the species, the welfare of that species — how healthy it is — and the impact of that species on other species. That must be considered. It is known as conservation. Three sets of papers provide very important scientific evidence that addresses that issue. The first is the Heydon and Reynolds three regions papers, which refer to fox demography in three areas of England and Wales: mid-Wales, the East Midlands and East Anglia. What emerged from those studies was that the fox population welfare fares better where there is a tradition of hunting with dogs; there is less suppression of numbers overall, there is more tolerance of the fox as a species, and, in addition, the management is naturally selective — it selects the weak and the diseased, leaving the healthy. In other areas where there is widespread shooting, such as shooting estates, or where there is a pressure to suppress fox populations due to lambing, as is the case in mid-Wales, there is much more non-selective management. As a result, the fox can be almost totally eradicated in those areas. The issue is this: where there is hunting with dogs, the overall welfare is better.

I move to the Exmoor wild deer herd studies. Our slide references a number of studies: the agricultural development and advisory service (ADAS) study and the KJ Collard study. Those studies looked at the health of wild red deer in Exmoor. They found that wild deer in localised areas of Exmoor, such as Baronsdown and Holnicote, where hunting with dogs is prohibited and deer management practices are altered by activist policies, the herd is overall less healthy, with higher rates of TB and inbreeding compared with deer in the remainder of Exmoor. The differences are striking. The positive rates of bovine TB in those areas where the activists allow the deer to congregate and where hunting with dogs is prohibited are up to 42% and, on the rest of Exmoor, down to 16%.

I move to ground-nesting bird decline and predator management. That is the work of Professor Barry McMahon, a University College Dublin (UCD) academic. Over many decades, he has studied a lot of conservation subjects, but one of his main subjects is European bird decline. His papers indicate that the curlew, lapwing, snipe and woodcock — all of which are ground-nesting birds — are in rapid decline throughout Europe, Britain and Ireland. The conclusion is that, among other things, serious consideration must be given to the management of general predators. For our purposes, general predators are the fox and the badger.

The Chairperson (Ms D Armstrong): Dr Cassidy, are there many more slides? The Committee would like to ask questions, and we will be pushed for time.

Dr Cassidy: There are not many more. The next slide is headed "Not alignment nor equivalence". It contains a quote from a very good associate of NoISE Albert Titterington, an academic and man of great experience in the field. He said:

The Bill ignores the legislation on the other side of an extensive land border with the Republic of Ireland, across which a number of hunts operate.

Lastly, I am going to mention something that is not necessarily an area of objective scientific expertise, but I thought that we should look at it. Hunting with dogs has a documented place in Irish language, art, literature and rural history, and it should be represented accurately. There are high crosses throughout Ireland with hunting scenes. You will see on my slide the Bealin high cross, which shows hunting with dogs, hounds and horses; a screen from the Book of Kells showing Irish hunting dogs; and a portrait of Daniel O'Connell, "The Liberator" — a man who hunted all his life — with one of his Kerry beagles.

I raise that because the second-most-frequently used comment in the debates in the Chamber and the Dáil is that hunting with dogs was a British colonial legacy. Is that our affliction: that we are polarised; that we are either British or Irish; that it is a case of either/or, not both/and? In fact, it is both/and. That is the history in practice. Is such comment an ignorance of Irish heritage or is calling hunting a "British colonial legacy" a descent into sectarian stereotyping? The poetry is mentioned there and quoted. There are distinctive Irish hunting dog breeds: the Kerry blue, the Kerry beagle, the Irish setter, the Glen of Imaal terrier and the Irish wolfhound. There are many Irish horse breeds that are famous worldwide: the Irish draught, the Connemara, the Irish hunter and the Irish sport horse. All evolved on farms and in the hunting fields. There is Irish equestrian success worldwide, and that is acknowledged as a derivative of hunting and the hunting field. Whether it is showjumping or eventing, a lot of those people started their careers and their expertise in the hunting field. Those are the things that risk being cancelled, and the culture risks being destroyed by the Bill.

The Chairperson (Ms D Armstrong): Thank you very much for your presentation. I am sorry for rushing you, but we have a lot of questions for the panel.

I will open up by taking you back to the poll and the percentages from it. Do you have any data and details on the split between young people and adults who took part in the poll?

Dr Cassidy: No, Madam Chair. That is the major problem. The demographics of young people or older people are not available. The only demographics that we have show that 60% were from outside Northern Ireland and 40% were from inside. We do not know whether they were of urban origin. We do not know whether they knew anything about hunting. We do not know what age they were. That is a major weakness.

The Chairperson (Ms D Armstrong): Thank you.

You talk about the:

Do you have any comparative assessments to show that it is not any more effective or humane to use two dogs?

Dr Cassidy: The main comparator that it draws out is that it takes longer to flush the foxes out. That is in Scotland. In Scotland, they put two dogs into a cover, and there are guns waiting on the outside. When two dogs are used, there is a much longer — up to five times longer — pursuit of the fox in the cover before it emerges, so there is five times the pressure and the stress of pursuit by the two dogs, and far fewer foxes are flushed out. That is it, unless any of my colleagues can enlighten any further.

The Chairperson (Ms D Armstrong): You talk about the fox population and pest control. What is your view should the fox population not be controlled? What are the best methods to control a healthy fox population, and what are the implications if a healthy fox population does increase?

Dr Nick Fox (NoISE Coalition): We do not have proper data on what foxes die of, but, in a healthy, stable population, we can assume that births equal deaths. We know that foxes will die every year equivalent to the ones born. We do not know what they actually die of. We have man-made effects, such as car accidents, shooting, hunting, and so on. If, in an "ideal world", those are eradicated, foxes will still have to die, so, then, what do they die of? They die of disease and starvation because they are limited in the winter by a lack of food. Therefore, we are not talking about an either/or situation. The "or" is that they will still die from those other causes.

Actually, by killing foxes, you are not necessarily making the fox population go down; you are just taking away some of the surplus that is going to die from natural causes.

The Chairperson (Ms D Armstrong): I wanted to be sure of that.

Dr Cassidy, your paper states:

What particular unsafe or disproportionate consequences are, in your view, the most important? Could the Bill be amended in any way to address those consequences?

Dr Fox: I am not really clear on your question.

Dr Cassidy: The unsafe consequences might be a scenario such as this: one of our members has five dogs, and she takes them out walking in the park. It is a very frequent occurrence that a grey squirrel or a rabbit pops up, and the instinct of the animal is to give chase. It might rarely catch the mammal or the animal, but, still, that would technically be in breach of this law.

The Chairperson (Ms D Armstrong): What is your view on how that is shown to be accidental and not intentional? How can that be proved?

Dr Cassidy: That is a fraught question. I have done quite a lot of forensic psychiatry and given evidence in the courts. There is a whole complicated assessment of what intent is and whether intent exists or not. That is an exhaustive discussion and examination. One would not like to think that that would have to take place in circumstances in which there would be charges arising from this Bill.

The Chairperson (Ms D Armstrong): Thank you very much.

Ms Murphy: Folks, apologies for my coming in slightly late. I have to declare an interest as a firearms licence holder.

My first question is on shooting. There has been mention of comparative animal welfare measures, and you touched on shooting in your written briefing. On using shooting as a viable alternative to wildlife management itself, do you disagree with the requirement to shoot an animal as soon as reasonably possible, as is included in the Bill?

Dr Cassidy: No, I do not disagree. Dr Fox, I think, is best placed to answer that question, because Dr Fox has done specific and particular research on the shooting of foxes and on the welfare aspects of that.

Dr Fox: I was concerned about that too. I was scientific adviser to the Westminster Middle Way Group on hunting with dogs, and we had to present the evidence. I published a study in the journal 'Animal Welfare' in which we had shooters of all different types and different calibres of guns and rifles. The results were quite alarming; they were alarming to the point where I have now given up shooting altogether. If I was shooting at foxes, I would recommend that it would be legal only if a dog was present to find the wounded fox. Our results showed that, out of 10 foxes shot at, one would die, the majority would be wounded and some would be missed. We published all of that, and it is also in the book here.

Shooting as an alternative has real problems, and I suggest that, if you are concerned about fox welfare, you should look at shooting at the moment here. Do you know what a 410 is? It is a small shotgun. Or you can shoot a fox with an airgun. You can shoot a fox with a 410 or a 20 bore shotgun with bird shot in it, and that is perfectly legal. There is no way that you are going to kill that fox using those: no way. That fox will get away wounded, and, if there are no dogs present, it will linger. It might die; it might recover; it might get gangrene; but it is a bad scene.

Mr McGonigal: May I add to that point about shooting, Áine? I have been involved in pest management for my whole life and have done it professionally for the past 25 years. In my work, shooting makes up probably only about 5% of what I do. It is not always possible. I work in some very unusual places, including graveyards, as well as oil refineries, fuel storage facilities, colleges and schools, and shooting there is not a possibility. I cannot use firearms there, so I use dogs. I do not like to say that I "use" them; I work with them. I have a great relationship and bond with them. They fit naturally with my work. I cannot go into a primary school with a shotgun. That just would not work. When I look at the Bill, I wonder about ferreting. I use ferrets a lot. Would they be legal? Yes, they would. If an animal has to be flushed out to be shot, where do I stand with nets? I use a lot of nets. My interpretation is that the Bill makes nets illegal. In 99% of what I do, the use of firearms is not possible.

Beyond what I do, not every situation suits the use of firearms. The countryside is disappearing quickly. We are never too far from a house or built-up area. Centrefire and high calibre rifles and shotguns have their place, and there is no doubt that they work, but they do not suit every situation, particularly when it comes to what I do. As I said, my work is based around dogs and natural methods, often in areas where shooting is not possible.

Ms Murphy: Thank you, Steven. That leads me nicely to my next question. You mentioned ferreting and netting. Can those practices be carried out without the use of dogs to support them?

Mr McGonigal: They can, but it makes such practices very difficult. As I said, I work in a lot of different areas, including on a government property that covers about 3,000 acres. A lot of you are probably not familiar with what I do and the general way of it, but those 3,000 acres of ground are riddled with rabbits. Not every rabbit warren has rabbits in it. I may be contracted for a certain time, and, without a dog, I could spend hours and days searching. I take with me a young lurcher, which has been with me since it was a pup. Such dogs are not necessarily trained, but they are experienced in what they do, as they have done it since they were young. They indicate which warren is which. There are areas in which I cannot take dogs. The time for those jobs is doubled or trebled, because I have to spend time checking every bit of area, putting up nets or having ferrets enter warrens, only to find that no rabbits are there, and I have to move on to the next one. Dogs, however, know and can indicate when a rabbit is there.

There are many examples, but I will give you one. I also work with wire-haired dachshunds, which some of you may know as — you are not allowed to laugh — sausage dogs. I work at a fuel storage facility, which has bunded tanks. Every tank has an 18 ft clay wall around it, so that, were the tank to burst, that wall would keep the fuel in. It is next to a nature reserve, so I cannot use traps, snares or anything that might cause a spark. Ferrets are no good, because the tanks are off the ground probably to the height of your desks, and ferrets work only in enclosed areas. I have dachshunds, which wear high-visibility vests. The insurance policies for such places are renewed every 28 days. If any digging or structural damage were not resolved and a tank were to burst, the fuel would leak and could go into the nature reserve next door. The fuel storage facility is in an area of special scientific interest, so those responsible are not allowed to dig or have any structure. I place a net around the walls, which are 18 ft clay walls that run up into a point, and I let the dachshunds go in. They flush the rabbits from below out into the net, and they are dispatched quickly. The Bill means that that option is gone.

Ms Murphy: I do not know whether anyone else on the panel wants to come in on this point. At the Second Stage debate, I raised some concerns about the fact that the Bill will prohibit terrier work. Given your experience of dealing with terriers, could you talk us through that process? For example, how many dogs are used to flush a mammal out from the ground? In most cases, yes, the mammal is a fox.

Mr McGonigal: It involves only one dog. The dog wears a locator collar, and we have a box that finds the collar. That technology has been adapted from avalanche situations. Anyone who skis in such areas wears a receiver in case there is an avalanche. The dogs will naturally go to ground. It is very selective, because we do not have to go into a large area; we can go exactly to where the mammal is. We put the collar on the dog, and it enters the ground. It flushes the fox out into a net or to be shot or it holds the fox. The dogs are not there to fight; they are there to bark and bay, and that is within the code of conduct. My organisation has a code of conduct. That is what the dogs are there to do. The dogs are not there to make any contact; that is not the outcome. The dog is there to bay and hold the fox until we quickly excavate down and separate them, when the fox can be dispatched or flushed into a net. It is very selective. If there are dependant cubs, that can also be resolved with a terrier.

On the point about shooting, what do we do with a wounded animal that will go straight to ground? That applies to mink, rabbits and rats, not just foxes. I do some rat control, and using two dogs for rats would be a waste of time. It would not work.

I am happy to answer any more questions. We work within the code of conduct, and it is done professionally. It is quick, clean and humane when it is carried out properly.

The Chairperson (Ms D Armstrong): I move to the Bill sponsor, John, to ask some questions.

Mr Blair: Thank you. I may have upset the speaking order, and I may have to leave. I apologise to the panel. I have a role in the Assembly as a Deputy Speaker, and the Speaker is away at the moment. An official visitor is due to come into the Building fairly soon, and I am hosting that person. It is not the case that I am avoiding anybody with whom I disagree; I am probably not going to be here for any of the presentations from those who support my Bill. It is purely coincidental. I say that because some members were not here earlier when I gave my explanation.

I regret that I have to start with this point. I am not sure, Chair, whether we have just been accused of sectarian stereotyping. If I have, I am not going to take it seriously. If it relates to the tradition issue, let me hit back robustly. Children used to bring coal to school, and my granny used to tell me stories about that, but I am not going to propose that to Paul Givan as a way to address his budget deficit. Times change, things change and opinions change.

I will move to your presentation. This is another difficult one. It includes the statement — it is not made by one of you; you quote someone else — "buy influence with the Assembly". What does buying influence mean?

Dr Cassidy: Are you talking about the written submission?

Mr Blair: It is in your submission: "buy influence with the Assembly". I want to know what that means.

Dr Cassidy: Buy influence.

Mr Blair: It is almost an allegation. It quotes someone else, but you chose to include that in your presentation to an Assembly Committee. I will read it out.

Dr Cassidy: Read it out, yes.

Mr Blair: It states:

What does "buy influence" mean in the context of its being included in your presentation?

Dr Cassidy: It arises out of the very explicit, direct and repeated acknowledgement of support to the USPCA and LACS during the debate. I sat through the four and a half hours of the debate, and Minister Muir and you repeatedly expressed the support that they had given you in bringing the Bill forward. That is the influence that we are talking about.

Mr Blair: OK. I clarify that the consultation on a private Member's Bill is not a survey or a poll. It is a consultation on a private Member's Bill. I will do this as quickly as I can. For your information, it might be easy to look at the figures for an entire population, and that can be done with any poll on any issue at any time. Let me make it clear, through the Chair, to those presenting: that private Member's Bill had a consultation response of 12,011, and that is many thousands more — many, many thousands more — than the normal response to a consultation on a private Member's Bill. It is important to set that context. It is not intended to be an opinion poll; it is intended to be a snapshot of public opinion to help the Member when drafting their Bill. It is not an opinion poll. I hope that I have made that clear.

I take you to point 103 of your presentation.

The Chairperson (Ms D Armstrong): Excuse me, John. Let me say that, for members, it is page 82 of the pack.

Mr Blair: I will try to do that as well; apologies.

The point states that those who have not attended a hunt are susceptible to listening to "biased propaganda". Will you acknowledge a person's right not to want to attend a hunt? They may simply not want to or it may be something that they would find difficult because they do not agree with it.

Dr Cassidy: Of course, yes.

Mr Blair: Thank you; that is helpful. It would have been helpful had that kind of fairness been demonstrated in the submission. The submission also refers to packs versus pairs — you mentioned that in your opening comments. With the greatest respect, you told us at the start that this was objective scientific evidence. No statistical information has been presented today in terms of numbers of foxes or hounds or numbers of animals saved or taken from the wild. Do you agree that you have not presented any statistical evidence? You have quoted scientific evidence, but you have not presented statistical evidence.

Dr Cassidy: We were told that we would have between five and 10 minutes to present. We had to look at the overall picture and introduce a range of papers and some quite complex ideas. That is the task that we had to achieve. One would assume that the Committee will be looking into the matter in some detail, with a bit of time. We could not afford to spend the whole of the evidence session getting into the statistical detail of the research.

The Chairperson (Ms D Armstrong): I understand.

Mr Blair: I have a final question but, before I ask it, I want to make it clear that I have seen Steven's work in the past. I have listened intently to what he has said today about the practicalities of his work. I should have clarified as well that, if I have to leave, a member of our staff will be listening to the rest of the presentation. In any case, however, the session is, of course, being recorded and will be transcribed by Hansard. I will scrutinise all of the commentary and replies that are made after I go.

I say the following respectfully. In your written submission, you state:

However, you have spent quite a deal of your presenting time today quoting evidence from other UK jurisdictions. Do you agree with that? Europe got a mention as well.

Dr Cassidy: Yes.

Mr Blair: Are you saying that we should not compare with other UK jurisdictions but that you can in your presentation and in your evidence?

Dr Cassidy: The point was that the Bill goes much further than is the case in the other UK jurisdictions. We also pointed out that it ignores the extensive land border with the Republic of Ireland, which is very relevant to this part of the island.

Mr Blair: One of the other UK jurisdictions has a commitment to review its 21-year-old legislation. Do you accept that?

Dr Cassidy: Yes.

Mr Blair: OK. Thank you.

Mr Wilson: Steven very helpfully pointed out that shooting is not always advisable or practical. I want to reiterate that what you do in the various environments that you work in is vital. You have outlined the one-dog issue. If the Bill is passed in its current form, you will not be able to do that any more.

Mr McGonigal: It will mean that 90% of that will be gone.

Mr Wilson: What problems does that create for the individuals, organisations or companies to whom you provide that service?

Mr McGonigal: One example is the fuel storage facility that I mentioned. What would happen there? There would be no option. Horse stables are another example. There would be problems in a lot of areas. As I said, it would affect 90% of the areas that I work in. You could look at trapping, but then you have to think about non-target species. We can use underground traps for rabbits, and there are many of those, but then you have to think about hedgehogs, stoats and other non-target species. We do not want to go down that road. It would leave no alternative, really. There may be certain alternatives in certain areas, but things would not be the way that they are now. Our work would not be as effective.

Mr Wilson: That is what I was going to say.

Mr McGonigal: An alternative might be gassing — aluminium phosphide or phostoxin — but that is wildly expensive, as well as ineffective and inhumane.

Mr Wilson: Are you tasked to operate in scenarios where crops are high and shooting is not practical?

Mr McGonigal: All sorts of areas, yes. I do a lot of schools. I recently did a hospital in the Republic. There were ventilation ducts under the hospital. Some of the ventilation covers had come away, and there were rabbits and foxes living there. We cannot shoot in hospital grounds, so we used dachshunds and, eventually, ferrets to flush everything out and into nets. If dogs are not allowed, we will have no alternative there.

Mr Wilson: It is useful to hear from you, because, in the noise of publicity around this, the practicalities can be lost quite quickly.

Mr McGonigal: My concern is that, a lot of the time, the Bill is put across as dealing with mounted hunting. However, when we really look into it, we see that it affects a lot of things, including shooters and field trials.

Mr Wilson: I see a lot of unintended consequences.

Mr McGonigal: There are a lot of unintended consequences.

Mr Wilson: I understood paragraph 102 of your briefing paper perfectly. I just want to put that on the record.

Mr McCrossan: Thank you, all, for being here. I found your presentation quite enjoyable, to be honest. It was very matter of fact, which not all the presentations that we hear are. There is a lot of conversation about the Bill. I represent West Tyrone, which is a rural constituency. Baronscourt is in my constituency, so I am getting quite a lot of pressure from both sides, and, in the middle of that, the facts get muddled. If the Bill becomes law, what challenges will arise in border areas in West Tyrone, such as Strabane and Castlederg, given the law in the South of the island? How difficult will that be to police?

Dr Cassidy: The territory of a number of hunts straddles the border: the South Tyrone Hunt, Fermanagh Harriers and other hunts. We frequently hunt across the border. If the Bill were to pass, what would be illegal in one jurisdiction would be legal in the next townland, acre or field.

Mr McCrossan: That presents a difficulty, because dogs do not recognise borders — nor do I, for the record. [Laughter.]

If the Bill were passed, it would not be in its current form, because it would have gone through a rigorous process. Gareth touched on unintended consequences. I have seen many Bills go through the House where unintended consequences have proved detrimental to their core reasoning. What unintended consequences would arise for animal welfare under this Bill? There is a legitimate pest control element. I receive many concerns — as, I am sure, do Tom and Declan — about the control of pests, such as rats, and how difficult that is. There are also the issues of farming and wider rural life. What evidence supports each of the concerns?

Mr McGonigal: Another unintended consequence is shooting. A flushed animal has to be shot, and that will be very difficult. The Bill would also remove the use of terriers. We could end up with wounded animals that cannot be accessed. A trap or a gun does not work underground. When an animal is wounded and goes to ground — it may be a mink but, most times, it is a fox — we need a facility to remove that wounded animal. That is only one unintended consequence that I can think of off the top of my head.

Dr Cassidy: It is illustrated by the three regions' papers on fox demography, which show that, where shooting was widespread, the fox population was suppressed to near annihilation, whereas, in the hunting areas, foxes were tolerated and there was a much more balanced population. If the method changes, the tolerance changes, and the fox population fares much worse. There is no natural selection, and everything is shot. The papers on wild red deer on Exmoor show that not hunting wild red deer — they were not scattered, spread and culled under natural selection — ended up with more of them congregating. That meant that there was more bovine TB — up to 42%, I think, compared with 16% in the other areas — and much more inbreeding of the species. Those were the findings of the Collard and ADAS study of Exmoor wild deer. Disease and suppression are the unintended consequences.

Mr McCrossan: The Bill sponsor, who has now left the room, is in the same party as the Minister responsible for the Department. Given what is intended by the Bill and the unintended consequences that you have outlined, how contradictory, when it comes to the welfare of animals, was the approach that DAERA took in Fivemiletown recently — in shooting 51 cattle — to the approaches outlined in the Bill?

Dr Cassidy: I am glad that you asked, because I wondered whether I could say that. I do not want to be accused of saying it behind Mr Blair's back.

Mr McCrossan: You can say it.

Dr Cassidy: I have thought of that, and it comes down to this: I have put before you the notion of comparative animal welfare and how one method compares with the other. It is best illustrated by the following example, which you know very well. If we take a pack of hounds or dogs out to hunt a fox, the fox is hunted in its natural environment; it knows its environment; it is likely to escape; and anything that is killed is likely to have been diseased, aged or ill. There is a natural selection process. The fox can get away, and, in most cases, it does. If the fox is caught by the dogs, death is instant. However, in the situation in Fivemiletown — we call it the "Fivemiletown 51" — there was no natural selection. Fifty-one healthy animals were shot. There was no escape. They were corralled within their own territory, and, from what we understand, they were wounded and survived and then had to be shot several times. Healthy beasts were shot; not only the naturally selected — the ill or weak — were shot. They were all shot — cows, bullocks, calves and cows in calf — and there was no natural selection. That is what we mean by comparative animal welfare. It applies to that situation.

The Chairperson (Ms D Armstrong): Dr Cassidy, I need to caution you that we are awaiting the review related to the welfare of the animals at Fivemiletown. Those comments are not fully endorsed. I urge a bit of caution at this stage.

Dr Cassidy: My apologies if I misspoke.

The Chairperson (Ms D Armstrong): It is just important to —.

Dr Cassidy: I did not intend to bring that up, but I was asked.

Mr McCrossan: Chair, I appreciate that there is a review, but anyone who was at Fivemiletown knew that what was happening was wrong. The review is a mechanism that the Department is hiding behind until it finds its reasoning for it.

Here is the core question: does it feel to a group like yours, as experts in this area, that the Department's approach is that there is one rule for it and one rule for everyone else when it comes to the welfare of animals, particularly when you consider the slaughterhouse rules, which are very strict in that one animal cannot see another being killed?

Dr Cassidy: That very much seems to be the case. Dr Byrne, who works in active veterinary practice, might want to comment, if she is familiar with the Fivemiletown situation.

Dr Aoife Byrne (NoISE Coalition): What happened was completely unacceptable. I cannot fathom how vets were involved. Vets uphold animal welfare, and euthanasia should be a peaceful death. It baffles me how Agriculture Department vets were involved in that fiasco.

Mr McGonigal: I do not know exactly who said it, but, in the middle of all that, DAERA said, "Because the public don't necessarily like what we do doesn't mean we shouldn't do it". That applies to us as well: you may disagree with what we do, but that does not mean that it is —. During that time, that stood out to me as relevant.

Dr Fox: I believe that the thrust of John Blair's Bill is about animal welfare. That is really what he is trying to enhance. At the end of the day, despite all the little details, we are trying to promote animal welfare. The British Government at Westminster have signed the agreement on international humane trapping standards, which looks at certain criteria that are applied to traps. There is no reason why those standards cannot be widened to look at all the ways that we manage our wildlife in order to promote — I am an animal welfarist — animal welfare based on scientific studies.

We know that most of our information is incomplete. We cannot just get opinions if those opinions are not based on facts, and we do not have all the facts. We need a lot more research. I know that scientists always say that, but we do not have even basic information. We do know, for example, that the common house break-back mousetrap does not pass welfare standards, yet we use those mousetraps because we do not want rats and mice. We have to look at our standards and apply them equally across the board. I am talking about not just fox hunting but all the ways in which we kill wildlife. We will have a solution — an approach to take this forward properly — if we just expand it and look properly at the criteria.

The Chairperson (Ms D Armstrong): It is helpful to have understood your presentation and taken that evidence this morning. Thank you.

Ms Murphy: I go back to the two-dog limit. When I asked Mark from RaISe about it last week, he was unable to stray into what he believed to be political territory. Looking at the two-dog limit through the lens of somebody who partakes in a foot pack, will you talk us through your concerns about the possible effect of its implementation on what happens on the ground?

Mr McGonigal: My question is always this: where did that number come from and for what reason? The Naylor and Knott study proved that a full pack is five times as effective. I do not have huge experience of foot packs, but I previously followed beagles. There is pack in the glens of Antrim that works on hills and ground like that. There, they might as well go with two cats as two dogs, because, given the vast expanse of the area, it just would not work with two dogs. I always question why the limit is two dogs. Why not four, six, eight or 12? It is proven that a full pack is more effective for animal welfare.

Dr Cassidy: Áine, there are two aspects to it. One is efficiency. If people are out to cull foxes, using two dogs is inefficient, because it takes a long time, and they are not effective at flushing many foxes out of a large cover — many hectares of forestry, for example — with the gun standing on the outside. Let us say that nearby sheep farmers want the place to be cleared of foxes: using two dogs will be inefficient and ineffective and will flush out few foxes.

The second aspect is animal welfare. Two dogs will have to pursue and draw the area for five times longer. There is an assumption that pursuit means stress. That is perhaps also open to discussion, because the natural condition of the fox is to pursue and be pursued, so it moves on. Whether or not pursuit is stressful, it must be stressful to be pursued for five times longer, which is the case when using two dogs as compared with using a full pack. It is about efficiency and stress.

The Chairperson (Ms D Armstrong): Thank you for that, Dr Cassidy. We are pushed for time, because we have other contributors coming in, and we need to give them the same amount of time.

Ms Finnegan: I have a tiny question. This briefing has been very informative. It has been interesting to hear about your work, Steven, and there certainly has been learning at my end. Is there any amendment that could be made to the Bill that would make it workable for you?

Dr Cassidy: No.

Mr McGonigal: No.

Dr Cassidy: I think that we said to begin with.

Ms Finnegan: Apologies. I must have missed that.

Mr McGonigal: You are OK. Thank you.

The Chairperson (Ms D Armstrong): That has been really helpful.

Mr Wilson: I have one closing point. I disagree with the Bill sponsor, because I have found your presentation useful. John said that it lacked certain elements, but it was full of certain elements that helped me understand much more deeply the unintended consequences of the Bill. Thank you for that

The Chairperson (Ms D Armstrong): It widened out into a good debate, generally, covering areas that we might not have considered, which has been really helpful. Thank you again for coming and presenting. You are passionate about the issue — that was evident in your presentation — and we appreciate your expertise and opinions, which we will consider. Thank you very much.

Dr Cassidy: Thank you, Madam Chairman and Committee. May I leave for the Committee a copy of Dr Fox's latest publication, 'Hunting Ethics', and some of our lobbying material?

The Chairperson (Ms D Armstrong): Yes, that would be very kind.

Dr Cassidy: Thank you very much.