Official Report: Minutes of Evidence

The Chairperson (Ms D Armstrong): I welcome the Countryside Alliance Ireland (CAI) representatives to the meeting. We are joined by Gary McCartney and Mr Colin Dougan from the Countryside Alliance and Mr John Larkin KC, legal adviser. I invite you to brief the Committee, and we will then open the floor for questions. Go ahead.

Mr Gary McCartney (Countryside Alliance Ireland): I will try to get through this fairly quickly, and John then wants to go through the Bill.

Chair and Committee members, thank you for giving us the opportunity to present to you today. I am Gary McCartney from Countryside Alliance Ireland, which is a registered charity, and I am an active member of the Partnership for Action Against Wildlife Crime Northern Ireland (PAW NI). Like you, we want to see rural crime tackled. I am joined today by John Larkin KC, who has reviewed the Bill, and solicitor Colin Dougan.

Our message is simple: the Bill is not built on evidence, cannot be relied on as drafted and would increase the very suffering that it claims to end. The only legitimate ground for banning hunting with dogs is welfare. Hunting is one of several ways of managing wild mammals, so a ban is justified only if it is worse for welfare than the alternatives, and nobody has shown that that is the case. The Burns inquiry did not establish that hunting was cruel; Burns found no firm scientific evidence of it. Lord Bonomy's review agrees, and the peer-reviewed science supports hunting with dogs. CAI believes that you need to use the correct tool for the correct situation and terrain.

At last week's session, witnesses, including vets, scientists and practitioners, told you that the case for prohibition has not been made on the basis of objective, independent evidence. More importantly, although the Bill sponsor asked questions about statistical evidence, including figures relating to animals, he did not directly question the witnesses on whether the Bill would improve animal welfare: the stated reason for progressing the Bill.

Cruelty means unnecessary suffering. Managing wild mammals is necessary, as the Bill recognises. If hunting is not shown to be worse, it is not cruel, and banning it in the name of welfare when welfare will get worse is not ethical. The hunting community is not an opponent of animal welfare. It was, indeed, Richard Martin, an Irish MP, who was a keen horse rider, shooter, fisherman and fox hunter, who steered the first animal protection laws through Parliament in 1822 and helped to found what is now the RSPCA. Welfare and rural life have never been opposites, and our objection is to a Bill that makes welfare worse.

Mr Blair says that he wants to ban hunting for sport, not pest control. That is a false distinction, and the Bill does not make it. It bans hunting for any reason, dogs below ground and trail hunting, which is not practised here and involves no live quarry. Who decides what hunting is for? Demonstrating what happens when groups work in partnership, the Ulster Farmers' Union, the Northern Ireland Masters of Hounds Association and the Countryside Alliance recently renewed our memorandum of understanding (MOU), which was first signed in 2013. It records that the purpose of hunting with hounds on agricultural land is for wildlife management and pest control. That is what farmers and hunts have put their name to.

I will also touch on conservation. At Second Stage, the Bill sponsor said:

The evidence, however, says otherwise. At Glenwherry in the Antrim hills, a partnership using predator control, including terrier work and working with local hunts, has seen red grouse numbers rise from 37 birds in 2009 to over 300 in 2019. We have seen that across various species on the hill. The Committee visited the site and heard directly from the Irish Red Grouse Conservation Trust. Merlin Becker from the trust told the Committee last year that a ban on hunting with dogs would have an absolutely monumental impact on his work, given that he cannot do it without using dogs as a management tool. Dogs also underpin Operation LIFE Raft on Rathlin, and we already heard about Woody the dog. Again, both projects, one of which is part-funded by DAERA, which the Committee scrutinises, would fall foul of the Bill.

We have been here before. In 2021, the same Member introduced a similarly worded Bill to ban hunting, trail hunting and terrier work. It fell at Second Stage. MLAs were warned then about the implications for dog walkers, rough shooters, gamekeepers and farmers, and about the vague drafting and enforcement. Five years on, the pillars of concern are the same. John Larkin, who is beside me today, the Assembly's researchers, members of the Committee and MLAs are still asking questions. What is "participation"? What does "under control" mean? What evidence supports the inclusion of "two dogs"? On what scientific evidence is the Bill proposed?

Criminal law needs to be clear, as we have heard. Under the Bill, anybody whose dog hunts — by the dictionary definition, that is to search for, pursue, capture or dispatch a wild mammal in the course of any other activity — commits the participation offence. A single dog — not a pack, not a hunt. One dog. That covers dog walking, shooting, search and rescue and even people in the vicinity who are not directly in control of the dog. In Mr Larkin's opinion, the ordinary dog walker will be exposed, and shooting for the pot will become almost unlawful if a dog is used. "Under control", "cover" and "reasonable steps" are undefined. Relying on the restraint of prosecutors is no safeguard in private or vexatious prosecutions. The public must understand the Bill, because the courts must apply it. Explanations and explanatory and financial memorandums cannot fix a law that is unclear.

In a different debate, on 15 September, Gordon Lyons MLA warned of a chilling effect. He said:

The same principle should apply here. The exemptions, however, fall on their own terms. Take the two-dog limit: where is the evidence for that number? A peer-reviewed study in the 'Wildlife Society Bulletin' in 2018 looked across 80 coverts in Scotland and found that a pack flushed twice as many foxes as a pair in less than half the time with a shorter pursuit. Lord Bonomy reached a similar conclusion. Even Robbie Marsland from the League Against Cruel Sports said:

The same limit applies to the four activities in the Bill's so-called exemptions. That looks like an arbitrary drafting choice, not a welfare threshold. Rats and mice are exempt, but foxes are not, with no welfare rationale given. That highlights an implementation founded clearly on a cultural and social bias. Every exemption leaves people open to exposure from other parts of the Bill. That, along with depending on undefined terms such as "under control" and "reasonable steps", makes the exemptions useless, especially when they carry a penalty of up to five years in prison and an unlimited fine.

What about the data and the powers that we already have? In 2023, figures suggested that one case of wildlife crime that was occurring on a very large scale was publicly cited in support of the case for the Bill. We sought to test those claims against the available PSNI data, but the figures available to us were substantially different. That does not make wildlife crime insignificant; rather, it demonstrates why the Committee needs reliable, current, independent and verifiable evidence before creating new criminal offences. The PSNI told us that it could not provide us with up-to-date figures. Wildlife crime recording is not a statutory requirement, and resources are limited.

Existing powers, including those relating to antisocial behaviour, provide mechanisms for dealing with offending connected with wildlife and trespass crimes. If those powers are too difficult to use, we need to fix them. The Committee should examine why and whether the powers need to be strengthened. The answer to the enforcement problem should not automatically be another criminal offence; it should be to identify an enforcement gap, address it and ensure that any new offence is necessary, proportionate and supported by evidence. That is particularly important here because the Bill could affect lawful rural activities and ordinary activities such as dog walking.

What about the rural impact?

The Chairperson (Ms D Armstrong): Gary, excuse me. May I ask you to reach a conclusion? We want to leave time for questions, and we have your written submission.

Mr McCartney: OK. I will go on a bit. Westminster had Burns, and Scotland had Bonomy. We have not had a review. We therefore ask that the Committee recommend commissioning a Northern Ireland report before the Bill goes any further. There is, however, the principled approach of the Welfare of Animals Act (Northern Ireland) 1972, which allows a person who causes "unnecessary suffering" to be prosecuted but permits vital predator control, species management and land management. It allowed for robust prosecution.

I do not mean to be funny, but the Bill sponsor committed to bring back the Bill on the very night that it was defeated in the previous mandate. There were so many other routes available. The hunting community's offers to meet the Bill sponsor have gone unanswered. We asked the Bill sponsor to join the all-party group on animal welfare. No working groups have been offered to us. There has been no round-table discussion with stakeholders on hunting. A private Member's Bill should be a last resort, not a first resort. As Mr Larkin has said, the Bill is confused and unnecessarily complex. We therefore call on the Bill sponsor to recognise that it is time for a reset: withdraw your Bill, bring all stakeholders to the table and work with them to bring meaningful improvements to animal welfare.

Finally, our call to the Committee is to conclude that the Bill, in its present form, is unfit to proceed. Its flaws and deficiencies are so fundamental that attempting to rectify it through amendment is neither realistic nor responsible and risks leaving us with a bad and unworkable law.

I will pass to John, who wants to say a few words.

Mr John Larkin (Countryside Alliance Ireland): That is subject to you, Chair. We realise that the real value in these sessions comes from members' questions rather than from some formula that I might come out with.

I want to make three brief points and then say something about the meat of the Bill. The Committee has the texts of the Bill and the explanatory memorandum. First, what matters overwhelmingly are the words in the Bill. If the memorandum says, "white" and the Bill says, "black", black is what you have. The Assembly enacts the words in the Bill; it does not enact the words in the explanatory memorandum.

Secondly, a structural point. This private Member's Bill is not a free-standing Bill. To use the analogy of housebuilding, it is an extension on an existing house. Sometimes the analogy of an extension might be considered apt: if you have a 1970s extension on an old house, that is where the leaks and the problems come from.

Thirdly, there is an issue here of excessive penalisation. I find it very hard to believe that this was intended by the author of the Bill. If the Bill is enacted in its present form, to put it bluntly, the ability of farmers to protect their property will be very seriously reduced. A further subpoint is that excessive penalisation comes with the risk of abuse. I do not mean abuse simply in the overreach of the criminal law provisions of the Bill; what I mean is that neighbours — good citizens — will be exposed to vexatious complaints even beyond the already wide terms of the Bill.

I am sure that Committee members are very familiar with the text of the Bill, but, subject to your direction, Chair, I thought that it might be worthwhile to draw attention to some of the propositions that I mentioned very briefly in my opening. I invite the Committee to look at clause 1, which contains new article 23A of the 1985 Order. It includes the words:

That seems to me to have almost unlimited criminal liability. It is not so much that it is strict liability but that it approaches absolute liability — "whether or not" you are responsible for a dog. Later, I will give the example of the pensioner going for a walk in Ormeau Park. The person who accompanies the pensioner will also, potentially, be exposed to liability:

Paragraph (2) of new article 23A states:

and then an illustration is given —

Imagine the pensioner going for a walk in Ormeau Park, or anywhere else for that matter, and the dog picks up a scent and chases a squirrel. The pensioner has participated in hunting. The neighbour who has accompanied their elderly neighbour has also participated in hunting. It may be that that is the intended result, although I would find that extraordinary, but that is the textual outcome that we have here.

At the core of the Bill is new article 23B, which is introduced by clause 2. You will see that paragraph (4) of that article states:

If the friendly dog — let us assume that it is a friendly dog in the Ormeau Park example — simply wants to play with the squirrel, it is still "searching for and pursuing", and we are therefore in 23B territory. Again, members may find that quite extraordinary.

It will also be seen that 23B forms a pair with new article 23E, which is introduced by clause 6. Proposed new article 23E states:

Members may find that a sensible exemption, but, as we will see, it simply does not go far enough. The offence in proposed new article 23C will be committed by all kinds of people who have never formally engaged in trail hunting; indeed, my understanding, subject to that of the experts around the table, is that trail hunting in the formal sense does not take place in this part of the world. In the Bill, however, "trail hunt" is defined as:

So, if one's dog picks up a scent, lo and behold, one is guilty of the offence of trail hunting. Again, imagine a public park. There is one person with a dog, which is off the leash or pulls away from the leash, and it follows a scent. Imagine the scope for a complaint that, given the breadth of the text, might be either well founded or simply vexatious. There could be a phone call to the police, saying, "Mrs Brown down the street has engaged in trail hunting in Ormeau Park". Under the Bill's provisions, those are entirely foreseeable outcomes.

We then come to "terrier work". It would be an offence to induce:

There is controversy about badger baiting. One could imagine a focused article directed at badger baiting, but those words are broad enough to encompass the following scenario. I am a farmer — imagine — and I have a concern about rats in and around my premises doing all the mischief that rats do. I send dogs into the barn to flush out the rats. I have committed the offence of terrier work: the barn is an enclosed space, and the dogs have gone in to flush out the rats. I cannot rely on new article 23E because that saves me only with respect to new article 23B. It does not provide any protection in respect of terrier work. The farmer, who, naturally, will want to ensure that vermin are kept away from his or her farm, cannot therefore send the dogs in to clear out the rats.

We then come to a provision for the management of wild mammals above ground. There will be an issue with this. Proposed new article 23B does not apply if one is engaged in certain activities. There are two examples, one of which is realistic and the other is, one hopes, less likely to be encountered. The first example is shooting for the pot. You cannot shoot for the pot if you are accompanied by a dog — there are few occasions on which someone who shoots for the pot will not be accompanied by a dog — because that is rendered illegal by proposed new article 23F. That article is focused on killing the wild animal, but — this is the fanciful example — imagine that a dangerous animal, such as a tiger, escapes from Belfast Zoo or another enclosure. One would not want to kill the tiger, but one could not use dogs to follow its scent. In doing so, one would probably commit two offences: the offence of trail hunting and the specific offence under 23F.

I am conscious that time is at a premium, so I will say little about proposed new article 23G.

If one looks at proposed new article 23I, "Training dogs to follow an animal-based scent", one will see that, although 23C does not apply if you are training a dog, you are, in the course of training the dog under 23I, exposed to liability under 23B.

I hope that it is not too harsh of me to say that, textually, unless it is intended that anyone who owns a dog should be potentially exposed to criminal liability and that any farmer who owns a dog is potentially exposed at a higher risk of criminal liability — I find it hard to believe that those are intended outcomes — the Bill, in its present form, cannot remotely be considered fit for purpose.

The Chairperson (Ms D Armstrong): Thank you very much for that. It was very helpful. I will move to questions now.

One question from me: you have raised several concerns about the scope in the drafting of the offences in the Bill, particularly regarding ordinary dog ownership, pest control, conservation work and shooting activities. Which specific provisions create the greatest legal uncertainty, and what amendments, if any, would you recommend to make the legislation clearer and workable?

Mr Larkin: I am afraid that it is a bit like asking for directions in Donegal: one of the first answers that you will get is, "Well, I wouldn't start from here". That seems, to me, to be the problem. The amount of amendment would be so comprehensive that it really would not be the same Bill. That is why I made the point at the outset that it is one thing to have a short, targeted, free-standing Bill: we do not have that here. I am not sure that even rigorous amendments would suffice, given the overall structure. Perhaps it is helpful that I have gone on the brief tour of the horizon with respect to the clauses, because, to me, the breadth of clauses 1 to 4 seems absolutely enormous, and I would not start from here.

The Chairperson (Ms D Armstrong): We will scrutinise that, of course. Thank you very much, indeed. I pass to our Deputy Chair, Declan.

Mr McAleer: Thank you. You have all highlighted the concerns about dog walkers inadvertently being caught up in or accused of a level of engaging in a hunt. I appreciate what you said previously in that you would not start from here, but are there any particular changes that, you believe, could be incorporated in the Bill that would explicitly protect dog walkers in those circumstances?

Mr Larkin: The difficulty is that you would have to take out the interpretation clause with its obvious breadth. You would have to make it clear, perhaps expressly, that, were a dog to go off "on a frolic of its own", to use a phrase that lawyers often like using, there would be no liability attaching to the owner. However, I fear that the structural problem is that, in a zeal to go after one activity, there appears to be such a paranoia about possible loopholes, that the Bill really is the equivalent of identifying a suspect in a block of flats and sending an aeroplane over with a bomb to demolish the block of flats for fear that the suspect would escape. It seems to me to be an absolute carpet bombing of a particular subject matter.

The scope of the Bill is so wide for a purpose. Obviously, there are anti-avoidance provisions. For example, paragraph (4) of proposed new article 23B is designed to deal with the decision in the English courts, which gave a reasonably narrow approach to hunting. However, the approach to hunting is now so wide and the approach to participation is now so wide that, if you begin with activity a but activity a changes and the dog goes off "on a frolic of its own", you are fixed with liability. The surgery required, it seems to me, will be so radical that the patient will die.

Mr McAleer: I have a brief follow-up question. Mr Larkin, you said that the PMB is not free-standing; it is an extension. To what is it an extension?

Mr Larkin: The structure of the Bill is to insert a new Part 3A into an existing piece of legislation, which is the Wildlife (Northern Ireland) Order 1985.

Mr McAleer: Thank you.

The Chairperson (Ms D Armstrong): Thanks, Declan. I will move to the Bill sponsor, John, next and then to Gareth and Áine.

Mr Blair: I thank those who are here. Chair, I have to say at the start that I have never been this well placed to ask, at the start of a Committee briefing, whether a tiger released from Belfast Zoo would be regarded in law as a wild animal or a captive animal. Given that the KC gave me the example without providing the answer, I am not going to ask the question.

Mr Larkin: It is in the Bill, and it is dealt with by the definition. It is at new article 23A(3), which states:

Mr Blair: There are exemptions in the Bill as well.

Mr Larkin: The tiger is within the scope of the Bill.

Mr Blair: There are exemptions in the Bill as well. Chair, I did not go down that route deliberately; it was intended as a flippant comment.

The Scottish Act states that a person commits an offence if the person hunts:

and my Bill states:

Is the panel aware of anyone in Scotland, since 2023, who has been apprehended, charged or prosecuted in circumstances where their domestic dog chased a squirrel or any other wild mammal?

Mr McCartney: I will start, and then pass to John. Gordon Lyons made that point very clearly during the debate on 15 September, when he said that there was a "chilling effect". He stated:

That principle applies here.

Mr Blair: Chair, I did not say that.

Mr McCartney: You did not say that; Gordon Lyons said that on 15 September.

Mr Blair: I asked a question, Chair, and I would like it to be answered.

The Chairperson (Ms D Armstrong): Yes.

Mr Blair: The question was this: are you aware of any circumstance in Scotland since 2023 where a person whose dog chased a squirrel or other wild mammal was apprehended, charged or prosecuted?

Mr McCartney: To our knowledge, we are not. However, that does not excuse this Bill: this Bill is for Northern Ireland, not Scotland.

Mr Larkin: The Scottish legislation does not have a textual equivalent of clause 2, so I am not surprised that the scenario has not arisen.

Mr Blair: OK. Chair, I will clarify the point in the report about the penalties. Colleagues will be aware that I have already stated at Committee that I am prepared to look at the penalties and to bring them into line with the other penalties in the existing Order. I would do that, for obvious reasons, in conjunction with DAERA and seeking its advice. That probably answers your query in that regard.

Moving on, your presentation relies heavily on the Burns inquiry and the Bonomy review. On its opening page, in a letter to the then Home Secretary, Jack Straw, the Burns report states:

Quite apart from the fact that it is now more than a quarter of a century since the report was written, will the panel accept that there are contradictory or comparative responses or outcomes in that report? For example, at paragraph 4.54, the report states:

The report goes on to talk about farmers' traditional way of life, and I do not dispute any of that, for the record.

Paragraph 4.55 immediately goes on to state:

Will the panel accept that the simple fact is that there are two groups of opinion on this? There are those who think that hunting with dogs is acceptable, and there are others, like me, who think that it is not when it is done purely for recreation or sport or for no other good purpose, such as putting food on the table.

Mr McCartney: The memorandum of understanding that we have with the Ulster Farmers' Union makes it clear that it is not for sport; it is there for wildlife management and pest control. That is where there is an opportunity for people to work together. The USPCA, which was here last week, agreed that there is a need for dogs to be used. There clearly is a need to use them. Where there are two camps, we need to find common ground and work together on that. We are saying that we should be at a round table and that we should be working cooperatively.

Mr Blair: Chair, my question is about the contradictory commentary in the Burns report. Does the panel accept that it is a complete series of contradictory outcomes and comments? I respect it for that, by the way. I am not being critical in any way, but it is really not quite correct to present it as an outcome when you take one phrase from it, as you have done in your report and previously, when the report itself says that it is:

I have given you a clear example of a contradiction where there are two groups of opinion. Will you accept that?

Mr McCartney: We have said that Northern Ireland needs its own independent report.

Mr Blair: Thank you.

Burns points out that, in areas where red deer need to be controlled — I do not dispute that that happens — hunting with dogs accounted for only 15% of the annual cull. Do you think that that contradicts the wildlife management and conservation argument for using hunting with dogs, given that, in the circumstances provided by Burns, such activity accounted for only 15% of what was deemed then to be a required cull?

Mr McCartney: I think that it has to be the correct management tool for the situation. Again, we currently do not have a deer-hunting pack in Northern Ireland. So, that is not relevant to Northern Ireland. The bottom line is that it is not about the kill. It could simply be a matter of dispersing the deer, if, for example, they are damaging trees, so that the habitat can be allowed to flourish.

Mr Blair: Thank you for that. Before we move on, I will clarify that the Burns report contains clarification on what animal welfare is. It states:

Again, that is an opinion, and there are, I am sure, contrary opinions in the Burns report and more broadly across politics and society. Accepting all of those different opinions, let me ask this question to close. I say this respectfully, especially with the KC here. What you have presented us with today is what I have described as a range of opinions, and there are contrary opinions. Specifically in relation to the opinions that you are quoting from Mr Larkin, for the benefit of openness and transparency with this Committee, is the full text of Mr Larkin's advice going to be released to the Committee or are we going to be limited to the extracts that you have used either here today or publicly?

Mr McCartney: From our point of view, that is privileged information. There are further bits in the advice that may be useful to us moving forward.

Mr Blair: So, you are not, at this stage, willing to share that for the information of the Committee.

Mr McCartney: Not at this stage, no.

Mr Blair: OK. Thank you.

Mr Wilson: I have a question directly to Mr Larkin KC. In your estimation, is there a deficiency in the Wildlife Order that warrants the insertion of what is before us in the blue paper, given that that could open the door to such crazy levels of potential criminalisation? Do you feel that inserting this into the original legislation is warranted? That is my first question.

Mr Larkin: In short, no, for the reasons that I have, I hope, set out already to the Committee. If it were thought that there had to be additionally some targeted further provision, the better way of doing that would be by an entirely free-standing Act of the Assembly.

Mr Wilson: Can you define what that free-standing Act would look like?

Mr Larkin: This is an area for policy choice, and opinions on many of the matters covered by the Bill will, of course, vary. There will be people who will not like certain forms of hunting, but some of those people will be very keen to ensure that farmers are able to adequately protect their property, their livestock, their feed and so on. There will be people who do not like the idea of hunting for, shall we say, pure sport, but there will be very many people, especially if they are not vegetarian or vegan, who will see absolutely nothing wrong in, for example, shooting for the pot. Those of us who are not vegetarian know that the animals that we consume are killed somewhere by somebody. Therefore, as a policy observation, it seems a little bit difficult to object to an individual who makes provision for his or her family by shooting to provide that family with meat to eat.

Mr Wilson: The Bill moves between "one or more dogs", "more than two dogs" and "a pack" of dogs. Do you understand the methodology for why that is the case, why one dog is different from two and why it is restricted?

Mr Larkin: Candidly, no. Others are experts on the scientific detail and research in the field. If one is looking for dead animal remains, one is going to find the dead animal by the use of many dogs rather than one or two. It seems to me that, in some cases, there is no adequate reasoning attached to the figure, be that no dog or not "more than two".

Mr Wilson: That leads nicely to my next question on one dog. In your opinion, and given your vast experience, how in control of a dog can one be? What is an individual's defence if they are found to be not in control of the dog?

Mr Larkin: I go back to clause 1 and the definitions. It does not matter if you are not in control, but we see in other parts of the Bill references to a dog being "under control". What does that mean? I can understand the dog being leashed, but it does not make much sense, if one is using a dog to track something, that the dog be leashed, because the dog can move much further, follow the trail and go to places that a human cannot.

Mr Wilson: Leashed and muzzled would be of no benefit, because it is just the act of following the scent.

Mr Larkin: Absolutely right. The hunting occurs simply in the search.

Mr Wilson: I have just one more question.

The Chairperson (Ms D Armstrong): Very quickly, because we need to move to the next member.

Mr Wilson: This is very useful. I raised this with the British Association for Shooting and Conservation (BASC): the landownership issue. Should the Bill become law in its current form, would it create a chill effect and expose landowners to a great risk, because they are singled out in the Bill, and because of the weight that is attached to the word "knowingly"? Whose word is treated as truth in these types of scenario, if they arise?

Mr Larkin: It is possible that the difficulty goes even further than that. You are right to refer to the specific references to landowners. I take you back to the proposed new article 23A, the interpretation provision, under clause 1. It states:

There is a scenario in which, if you let the dogs on to your land —

Mr Wilson: Stormont estate, for instance.

Mr Larkin: — you have given a blank cheque, and you may be caught by clause 1, the breadth of which is extraordinary. I cannot recall another example of a clause with that kind of breadth.

Mr Wilson: Thank you.

The Chairperson (Ms D Armstrong): Our final question is from Áine.

Ms Murphy: John, there is a lot to digest. No doubt, I will go back through the Hansard report over the next number of days.

You mentioned "strict liability" and "absolute liability" in your opening remarks. Will you expand on the difference between those and how it fits with article 23A?

Mr Larkin: I did not hear all of the previous session, but there was a reference to the concept of mens rea. Typically, when a criminal offence is created, a specification on the mental state accompanies the new criminal offence. "Intentionally" or "recklessly" tend to be two favourite mental states for the creation of new criminal offences. You will see that there is no equivalent of "intentionally" or "recklessly" in the Bill. The new article 23A states that a person participates:

The strict liability would be, "Hold on, it is your dog; you came into the park with your dog. Too bad; the dog chased a squirrel". You are caught by, for example, trail hunting or by the main offence of hunting under new article 23B. However, the neighbour may say, "I did not come here with a dog". That is why I say that that may be close to absolute liability where, even using one's imagination, one cannot really consider that one might remotely be exposed to liability. If the Bill is enacted in its present form, it will have a huge chilling effect on dog ownership and on the exercise of dogs. You would not think that, if you accompany or even briefly meet a friend in a park, walk along a pathway for five minutes with that friend, and something happens in that five minutes, you would potentially be exposed to liability. It is that that may fall into the category of absolute liability. It had absolutely nothing to do with you, yet, potentially, here you are exposed to the possibility of criminal liability.

Ms Murphy: Off the back of that, John, let us look at the burden of proof, which can differ in a situation such as that. If two neighbours go into a park, one with a dog and the other accompanying them without a dog, how would the burden of proof work out where you incorporate strict liability? Is there an actual defence, or can any defence be used in a court of law when it comes to strict liability?

Mr Larkin: Again, in addition to often seeing some sort of specification of "intentionally" or "recklessly" in legislation, one often sees a provision of "X, without reasonable excuse,". That is very often a safeguard that one finds from time to time. Again, however, you do not see that formula in this Bill.

Ms Murphy: I have one more quick question, Chair, I promise. Gary, we heard earlier from BASC, whose representatives' total emphasis is on shooting and using guns to dispatch game, for example. What circumstances would or may necessitate an animal being dispatched by a dog rather than by a gun?

Mr McCartney: It could be because of the terrain, such as a forestry block. You could not use a rifle in that situation. The terrain on the Antrim hills is an example. It may be in close proximity to houses and other features, which may have an impact on what you are doing. That is why we said that it comes down to the circumstances and the terrain and what the farmer wants on his land.

Ms Murphy: That goes back to the issue about the two-dog limit on the terrain, as you previously referenced.

Mr McCartney: Yes. Even Robbie Marsland has said that it is common sense that a pack of dogs will cover more ground and will flush out more foxes. I cannot remember the exact quote, so I am paraphrasing him. That is especially the case if the animal is wounded; you are going to want to do that as quickly as possible. You are not going to want it to last for longer than necessary.

The Chairperson (Ms D Armstrong): Thank you very much. I will go quickly to Tom, because we need to wind up the meeting in 10 minutes' time, and we have some business to conclude.

Mr T Buchanan: I will be brief. Mr Larkin, from your legal perspective, do you see anything in the Bill that will improve animal welfare?

Mr Larkin: I have to confess that my attention has not really been focused on the animal welfare calculation. I have been focused simply on the technical aspects of the Bill. With that important caveat proviso, however, it seems to me that a Bill that is going to, for example, prevent farmers from making adequate provision for their own livestock, and which is going to cause people to, shall we say, think more than twice about exercising their dogs, cannot even, on those grounds, be considered a positive contribution to animal welfare.

Mr T Buchanan: Thank you.

The Chairperson (Ms D Armstrong): OK. I am so sorry to rush you. We could listen, I am sure, for a long time to the arguments back and forward. We appreciate your coming in. Thank you very much for your time today.