Official Report: Minutes of Evidence

The Chairperson (Ms D Armstrong): I welcome Owen Mulcahy, founding member and secretary of the Irish Working Terrier Federation (IWTF); John Phelan, the IWTF's business development manager and treasurer; Brian McCullough, who is a huntsman; and Steven McGonigal, who is a rural pest controller and consultant. We have your written evidence, so I invite you to brief the Committee.

Mr Owen Mulcahy (Irish Working Terrier Federation): Thank you, Madam Chair. On behalf of the IWTF's executive committee and members, I thank you for inviting us here today. I will go through the presentation that I have in front of me. I am the secretary and founding member of the IWTF and the vice-chairman of FACE Ireland, which has 55,000 members across Ireland and represents a number of cross-border, all-Ireland bodies. I am aware that the Committee met FACE representatives last week.

We are presenting to you today because the Bill, through its proposed new articles 23A and 23D of the Wildlife (Northern Ireland) Order 1985, seeks to ban terrier work, the use of dogs underground and activity involving the use of more than two dogs. With its implications for the continued use of working terriers, the Bill directly affects our membership. It affects farmers' ability to defend livestock from predation and to prevent crop damage; the prevention of predation by invasive species, such as mink; and the protection of endangered species, such as ground-nesting birds. We see terrier work as the most selective, balanced and humane option available to the rural community and farmers across Ireland.

The IWTF has members in every county in Ireland — in every parish. As an organisation, our aim is to represent the interests of traditional working terrier enthusiasts, terrier men and hunting communities across Ireland. We are very much interested in wildlife management and conservation, advocating the responsible, balanced use of working terriers to protect natural ecosystems, game birds and rare species from predation; in pest control, supporting the agricultural community by providing valuable humane pest control services to safeguard crops and livestock; and in population management, engaging in regulated predator control to maintain ecological balance in rural environments. We are also interested in education and heritage: it is important to us that we educate people about what we do and how we go about it so that they understand that, because there are a lot of misconceptions about it. We are interested in defending the rural way of life and in education in best practice, upholding strict animal welfare standards and preserving the heritage of working terriers. Ireland's native breeds of dog are working dogs — every single one — four of them being terriers.

There are myriad hunting organisations across Ireland. The Committee has met some but not all of them and is probably about to meet more. We would not be able to hunt across Ireland and Northern Ireland without the consent of the farming community. In Northern Ireland, there is a memorandum of understanding with the Ulster Farmers' Union, which has 12,500 members in the farming community, through which farmers invite hunters on to their land. In the Republic, the IWTF has the direct backing of the Irish Farmers' Association (IFA). All our members and their work are insured under the IFA Countryside scheme, which has 83,000 members. Nearly 100,000 farmers across Ireland back what we do and invite us on to their land.

In the past number of years, the wildlife legislation and animal welfare legislation of all jurisdictions — the UK, Northern Ireland and the Republic — has been contemporised. The original legislation, which was the Protection of Animals Act 1911, came in when horses and carts were in use and draft horses were left dead on the side of the road. Over the past 100 years, we have moved forward. England, Scotland and Wales, Northern Ireland and the Republic have all recently contemporised their animal welfare Acts: England, Scotland and Wales in 2006, Northern Ireland in 2011 and the Republic in 2013. The Acts are all based on the same legislation; there are a lot of similarities among them. We therefore have contemporary legislation in Northern Ireland, the Republic of Ireland and the rest of the United Kingdom, and that, we feel, means that wildlife in Northern Ireland is in a good place. There are other laws here, such as the wildlife Acts: a series of laws that, as it is, we see as protecting Northern Ireland's wildlife.

When all the wildlife Acts across the jurisdictions were being reviewed, terrier work was reviewed. In all areas of the United Kingdom — England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland — and in the Republic of Ireland, the use of terrier work for pest control and wildlife management remains perfectly legal. It is also legal across Europe, including in France, Germany, Spain, Poland, Croatia and all the Scandinavian countries, and across the world, even in the USA, Australia and Africa. Those are all areas with high levels of legislation for animal welfare. During reviews of hunting and of hunting Acts in various countries, terrier work was discussed and reviewed. There was the Burns inquiry; the Bateson review; the Bonomy review; the Naylor and Knott paper on the two-dog restriction; the Swedish university research into terrier work; and Professor Macdonald's work on targeted and localised control using hounds and terriers.

There have been conservation projects and research studies such as the Glenwherry conservation project in Antrim, the Ballydangan red grouse project in Roscommon, the Wicklow Mountains Irish red grouse conservation project and the Northumberland predator control experiment, which was conducted by the Game and Wildlife Conservation Trust. That major study showed that stopping control measures has a devastating effect on vulnerable and endangered species, particularly ground-nesting birds. Predators such as foxes quickly increase. Lapwing, snipe and golden plover populations nearly collapse, and red grouse populations drop by 50%. In the experiment area, black grouse and grey partridge populations became extinct, and breeding bird calls fell silent.

I am showing you a graph from the Irish Red Grouse Conservation Trust. Some of you might know Merlin Becker, its secretary. He is a game conservation specialist working professionally for the Game and Wildlife Conservation Trust, and he uses multiple methods of pest management to protect vulnerable species. He uses some of our members' terrier work as a tool to protect ground-nesting birds.

If such control measures and what I call natural hunting with the use of terriers are removed, we will end up with excessive populations and increased predation. The graph shows some of the animals that we protect through predation management: red grouse, lambs, poultry, calves, pheasants and so on. We use various breeds of working terriers. Predation issues include those relating to lambs; damage from the spoiling of feedstocks by rats; disease; and foxes. A lot of people might not realise that the snapshot on my screen is of a fox predating a calf in a barn. That was captured on a live video camera at a Northern Ireland farm. If there is a cow that goes down with milk fever, foxes will eat the cows' teats. A dairy cow with no teats is no good to anyone. Foxes have been known to attack calves as they are being born, eating their soft tissue. We all know that they attack chickens and lambs, but they also attack pets. They attack cats, and they have attacked and killed dogs across the country. They have attacked children in areas of London: fox attacks happen across the board.

Part of the purpose of the Bill is to prohibit the use of working terriers — it refers to "one or more dogs" — below ground.

The IWTF has a set of rules and a code of conduct. We never use more than one dog below ground. Hunting with working terriers is a selective, balanced and humane form of predation management. The species that we hunt include mice, rats, rabbits and foxes: it is about invasive species control. You may ask the question: where do those species go when they are hunted? The answer is that they go below ground.

It is natural to a fox for a terrier to be put into a hole. It is similar to what a fox would experience in day-to-day territorial conflicts: you put a similar-sized canid into a hole. You cannot force a dog into a hole. One of the five freedoms of dogs is that a dog should be allowed to express its natural behaviour. You can lead a horse to water, but you cannot make it drink. You can bring your dog to a hole, but you cannot make him enter it. It is all about natural behaviour.

The Chairperson (Ms D Armstrong): Thank you for your presentation. I ask you to conclude the presentation to allow us to satisfy the need to ask questions.

Mr Mulcahy: May I conclude the presentation?

The Chairperson (Ms D Armstrong): Yes, certainly.

Mr Mulcahy: All our members operate under a code of practice — that is enforced; every club and member has to sign up to it — under the legislation that I mentioned earlier. The question that I ask is this: does the Committee accept the need for wildlife management and, if so, what methods should be used? What are the consequences of the alternative methods? If you remove natural control methods — natural hunting — the alternatives are poisoning, snaring or trapping and non-targeted control measures. We view all those measures as being less humane. What we are about is the humaneness of what we do.

If you ban hunting with dogs, what alternative measures will come in? Predation will not stop: it is 24/7, 365 days a year. Our argument is that hunting with dogs as pest control is not hunting for sport. It is balanced wildlife management and pest control that seeks a natural balance in ecosystems. It is targeted. Scotland's type of legislation will not help, because farm structure in Northern Ireland is totally different. We do not have 1,000-acre estates as in Scotland; across Ireland, we have a patchwork of small farms with multiple owners and rented land, and there is the border issue as well.

Wildlife is under pressure, but not from hunting. We believe that any legislation that is introduced should take account of that of other jurisdictions that have recently reviewed their legislation but left terrier work in place. It is one of the very few aspects of hunting that remains legal in other jurisdictions.

The Chairperson (Ms D Armstrong): Thank you, Owen. I need to stop there to allow members to ask questions because almost the full Committee is here today. I wanted to speak specifically to Brian, who is a huntsman. I am very interested to hear about his role. The IWTF asks for the proposed new article 23D to provide for an express exception that would preserve legitimate terrier work. Can you help us better understand why underground terrier work is the more effective and humane method of flushing out animals?

Mr Brian McCullough (Irish Working Terrier Federation): We hunt in the glens of Antrim, which is wild, mountainous and hard terrain. Every patch of heather, gorse, rushes and other cover is up past my knees when I walk into it. It is a sheep-farming area with very few cattle, and there is not a farmer in the glens of Antrim who would turn us away. The area that we have to cover is massive — it is far too big — and we do so at no expense to any farmer.

You cannot see the foxes that you are trying to shoot in that area because they are in heather that is two or three feet deep. It is very hard to find the holes where foxes live, but the hounds will show me where they are: the hounds will take us. We will walk for miles — it is a foot pack — and there are no roads or lanes, so it is very hard to get to. People who shoot foxes will do so at night. It is not feasible on a winter's night to walk on to the hill to shoot a rifle, neither is it feasible to send only two dogs — two hounds, or whatever — to hunt in such an area because of its vastness. When you are on one of those hilltops, you see that it is vast, and a fox will travel through an area of 10 square miles every night, so finding him using two dogs would be extremely hard. Therefore, we take the hounds on to the hill and cast them through the heather. They will all work individually, going out wide. They will find that fox. When he goes to ground, my job is to bolt him — to shoot him.

An important point to make is that a lot of farmers in the glens of Antrim have their own guns for predator and vermin control. They will take shots at foxes. Even the RSPB in the area kills probably three or four times more foxes than we do, all of them with rifles. When farmers shoot a fox, they phone us to say that it has happened. If a farmer has shot a wet vixen, which is also known as a milky vixen — she is feeding cubs — a terrier and the hounds will take us to the hole to end the suffering of the foxes in it. They would have starved to death in the ground, because, once the mum is shot, the cubs cannot survive. That might take a week of starvation, but, by going in with a terrier, I can end it promptly — it is over.

The area that we generally hunt in is different from the lowland, although we hunt in lowland areas as well. A lot of the farmers are sheep farmers, and they do not have a big income. They may also keep poultry and sell eggs, or sell ducks or geese, so they may have a lot of poultry in their yards. If there is a hungry fox in that area, he will also take lambs. This year, one farmer had 42 lambs, at £100 apiece, taken in a week. That is just one farmer. We get called, and we end up going out after work in the evening just for that, because, if we do not, those farmers —. They serve a purpose for us, and we serve a purpose for them. Generally, that is our job.

The Chairperson (Ms D Armstrong): That has been really helpful. Thank you. If the exemption were to be created, how could enforcement agencies distinguish between legitimate wildlife management and unlawful hunting activities? How could that be determined?

Mr McCullough: What do you mean by "unlawful"?

The Chairperson (Ms D Armstrong): I am talking not about activity that is legitimate, involving trained marksmen, but about the activity of other people, who may not be as skilled, deliberately going out to hunt and thereby causing inhumane treatment of animals.

Mr Mulcahy: Our club members operate under the IWTF code of conduct, which is a strict code of practice. Every club is aware of it, and we do training and education. Our dogs are specifically bred — there is a breeding programme; there is genetics behind all this before we step into the field — and selected, and there is a training programme. Everyone has to sign up to a code of conduct. Our members are well aware of the laws. They are trained and well aware of any other animals that are in the area. It is very selective. A lot of the time, when we are invited on to farms by the farmer, they point us to the area that we should go into.

The Chairperson (Ms D Armstrong): That activity is highly regulated by your organisation, but are you aware of unlawful hunting using terriers?

Mr Mulcahy: There is good and bad when it comes to every kind of hunting activity. We cannot condone that; it is an illegal act. Just as there are good and bad doctors and engineers, there are good and bad hunting people. We do not condone any of that. We work according to a strict code of practice.

The welfare of animals is not the remit solely of animal welfare organisations but is in the best interests of all of us. The phrase "hunting is cruel" is bandied about, but that is like calling a farmer "cruel". A farmer rears livestock to be killed; hunters hunt animals and invariably have to kill them. The important thing is how we treat and interact with animals that are under our control. We have strict codes of practice and rules, and we have permission from the farmer. Laws such as the Animal Welfare Act 2006 and the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981 are already in place, and we are well aware of them.

Mr McAleer: Will there never be occasions in your work when animals are torn apart by the terriers that you use? Is what you do solely flushing out and humanely dispatching?

Mr McCullough: Yes.

Mr Mulcahy: We also have to distinguish what we hunt. We hunt rats. A terrier will catch a rat. There are allowances in the Bill for hunting rats, and, because people do not like rats, that is acceptable to some people. Rats have an important role in ecosystems, but, just because people do not like them, it is OK to hunt them. We hunt various species. A rat will be caught by a dog and dispatched in a second — caught and killed.

Our dogs are trained. When they go into a warren, they do not tear a fox apart. They are trained dogs. They bay at it; they bark at it. My dad was a postman, so I say that it is like the postman's leg: they can dart in and out, but they cannot get it. They are just baying dogs: soft terriers that bark, bark, bark. We put a shovel in and excavate the earth, take the terrier away, and it is then a case of point blank dispatch with a gun: zero wounding. The good thing about terrier work is that it is selective. It is balanced but sure. There is no wounding; there is no getting away; and there is no tearing animals apart.

Mr McAleer: You will appreciate my next point, Chair, because of your county, as will you, Aoife, given where your part of the world is. There is lots of territory of the type in the glens of Antrim that you describe, Brian, in south Armagh, where Aoife is from, and in your county, Chair, that straddles the border with the South of Ireland. What is the effect of the legislation there, and how difficult would it be for you to operate in those areas if the two jurisdictions set different regulations to govern your practice?

Mr McCullough: Do you mean between North and South?

Mr McAleer: Yes.

Mr McCullough: The glens of Antrim do not border any other jurisdiction.

Mr McAleer: Yes, but in certain situations, your organisation operates in territory that straddles the border.

Mr Mulcahy: Absolutely: it does. There are two aspects to the IWTF. It has independent terrier men who work under their own auspices. We also work with hound packs, and, when members work with such packs, they do so under the pack's rules and codes. A fox that is being hunted from the Republic might cross the border — there is no land border for a fox — given that it is perfectly legal in the Republic of Ireland to hunt foxes with the use of terriers. A recent vote on hunting there was decided by a large majority. We see that there is a problem. If you were to be hunting in the Republic of Ireland, which is a perfectly lawful activity there, but the fox crossed the border, which, under this legislation, would make that activity illegal, where would people stand in law when retrieving dogs from the neighbouring jurisdiction?

Mr McAleer: That could happen, because lots of farmers own plots of land that straddle the border, with one side of the field in one jurisdiction and the other side of the field in the other jurisdiction.

Mr Mulcahy: In theory, you could be legal on one side of a hedge and not on the other. A dog in the Republic of Ireland could enter a hole and end up in Northern Ireland.

Mr McCullough: It could, actually.

Mr McAleer: Thanks very much.

Mr Wilson: It has been an interesting session. You probably feel that the terrier would be a bit persecuted under this Bill. There are exemptions, such as for the prevention of serious damage to livestock, but the terrier, as a breed, would still, for no obvious reason, fall foul of it. Even if it were exempted, no more than two dogs could be used for that purpose. In your opinion, using just two dogs would be a waste of time.

Mr McCullough: We always use only one terrier.

Mr Wilson: Yes, but in order to find a fox, which is what you described —.

Mr McCullough: That would be a near impossibility. To try to find, with two dogs, in hill areas — no.

Mr Wilson: If the farmer who had lost 42 lambs tasked you with that, you would not get anywhere.

Mr McCullough: You are not going to get anywhere. He will probably bring sheep in. When he asks us to come, he will probably move all his sheep off the hill to help with the scent, because, obviously, the sheep foil the ground, as we call it. He will bring his sheep in. That takes half a day; it is a bit of work for him to bring them in off the hill. He will bring them off the hill so that we can go with the hounds to try to find that fox, because it is more beneficial to him for us to take that fox out of the equation than for him to take half a day to bring sheep off a hill. The time of year when that happens is mostly lambing time, so it is in spring. In springtime, you also have your curlew, plover and all your ground-nesting birds, which are in massive decline. Even the RSPB and other conservation groups will all say that.

When a vixen is killed by whatever method, I ask anybody this: what is the alternative? When there are cubs in the ground, what is the alternative? What do you do with them? They are underground. No man can shoot them. Nobody wants to use poison. You have to find them to poison or trap them, and nobody wants that, because you check a trap every 24 hours, so they could be in a trap for 23 hours. It could be whatever time it takes to poison them. There is one way of dealing with it, which is to have a terrier underground in minutes. I challenge anybody to give me the better alternative, on an animal welfare basis, to end those foxes that are a problem to the farmer.

Mr Mulcahy: We work teams of terriers as well, and they could be in stick piles for hunting rats and rabbits. The one-dog rule would affect us there as well. We could put them into a rock burrow or small cover. They could be in heather. There are areas that hounds or bigger dogs cannot get into, so a lot of our members do not work with any pack hounds. They go with their terriers and work what we call bushing — that is above-ground work — and it might be just ratting in farmyards, hay barns and drains. Teams of dogs come under the one-dog rule in those cases. When you start working terriers together, they operate as a team, like a pack. One will drive them, and the others will try to get ahead.

Mr Wilson: Steven, you are in a much more precise scenario in some of the work that you are doing. It was useful to hear that the last time. On that basis, what are your thoughts on that scenario?

Mr Steven McGonigal (Irish Working Terrier Federation): The last time I was here, we discussed what I do. I work in industrial estates, schools and colleges, and I have no alternative. I gave you the example of the hospital ventilation ducts in which there were foxes. In that situation, I have no alternative; the terrier is really the only option. The breed that I use is dachshunds, but it is the same principle. The legislation would rule any of that out completely. As Brian said, there has to be an alternative, because with the removal of the terrier, we do not have an option for those areas. In the built-up areas on the edges of towns and in any of the work that I do, there is no alternative and no other option.

Mr T Buchanan: Do you see the Bill having adverse consequences for the health and welfare of the foxes that are out in the wild, in a sense, taking into consideration the scenario that you described where the cubs are underground and cannot get out? The Bill has been brought forward to improve the health of foxes and other mammals, as they are talked about, out in the wild. Rather than doing that, it is having the opposite effect.

Mr McCullough: Exactly.

Mr Mulcahy: Predation will not stop; it is as simple as that. The foxes will continue to predate, mink will continue to predate, rabbits will continue to eat crops and rats will spoil foodstuffs. You can look up the World Health Organization statistics to see the amount of damage that rats do, which includes spoiling foodstuffs. The purpose of the Bill is to enhance animal welfare, but it will have the opposite effect. Terrier work is selective: you go to the place where the problem is. You will be invited in by the farmer and pointed to the place where the problem is. It is highly selective. If you remove a selective and natural control method — hunting with dogs is natural — what are your alternatives? They are snaring, poisoning, trapping and other non-targeted options. Snaring is non-targeted. Poisoning is non-targeted and has secondary effects, so not only might you miss the target species that you are looking for but other species might be affected, including by secondary poisoning. We see it in the countryside. We are in the muck and the dirt on really rainy days. When people are at home watching box sets on TV, we are out there on the land helping the farmer. He rings us because he is in trouble. We see the effects and consequences of alternative methods. We see snared animals with their leg or half their body snared. We see the damage. It takes days for them to die. Gangrene sets in with some of the animals. It is horrendous. As I said, animal welfare organisations do not solely have the remit for animal welfare. I do not come from a hunting family. I got involved in hunting because of my love of dogs — working dogs came into that — and because of my love of wildlife in general. We do not want to see animals suffering. We do not want to see the extermination and elimination of foxes either. We want the situation to be balanced, targeted and selective, and we see that this is the best method of doing that.

The Chairperson (Ms D Armstrong): Thanks, Owen.

Ms Murphy: Owen, I have just a quick question, because a lot of ground has been covered. I will go back to terrier work. Will you walk me through the stages of that from start to finish?

Mr McCullough: Do you mean from start to finish with a terrier?

Ms Murphy: Yes.

Mr Mulcahy: Just from entering the dog into a hole.

Mr McCullough: One terrier will be walked up to the hole. We all walk up quietly and try to find the entrances in different areas, such as in the heather and other cover. When we find them, we use a gun or a net. Sometimes you cannot shoot where a fox is, so you put a fox net over the entrance, which will stop the fox. If you cannot take a safe shot at him or if he goes straight into cover, you will not see him long enough to take a shot, so you put a net on so that you can have him and shoot him in the net. It is all very quiet, because he will not want to bolt if you make a lot of noise. A terrier goes in, just like a sheepdog that is rounding up sheep. Sheep run away from a collie dog because they are frightened of it. That is how it is. That is how you round up sheep. That fox will run from that terrier. The terrier will go in and bark and bay at the fox, and the fox will run round the earth, find an escape route and go. When he goes, he is shot or caught in a net. If he does not bolt but stops in what we call a stop end, he will back himself in there, the terrier will bay at him, we will dig in with a spade and, once we break in, we will take the terrier back. We do not want our dog to be injured, because he has to go again. We need that terrier every week, so we do not want a confrontation. I shoot the fox there and then, and the job is done.

It is the same with cubs. A fox does not even have to be shot. A vixen might be causing hassle, and she might have cubs that she is feeding. The RSPB, as I said, shoots so many foxes, and very few people that I know of go to end the suffering of those foxes. It is all very well to look at 300 dead foxes and say, "We have saved the curlew, and we have saved that". On average, there are between four and six in a litter. That means that there are four to six cubs starving to death for that one vixen. To me, there is no alternative — none — safer or better than a terrier. Sorry, I feel as though I am shouting at you, Áine.

Ms Murphy: You are all right.

Mr McCullough: We do not want that. If somebody tells me, "I was out shooting today. I shot a fox", I will say, "Where?", and, if I see that it was a vixen, I will ask, "Where did you shoot that fox?". They will say, "Such and such a place", and I will go and look for the cubs to end their lives, because they are about to starve to death over a week.

There is no alternative that I can see. Somebody here can try to give me an alternative, but I have never heard a better alternative than that.

The Chairperson (Ms D Armstrong): Thank you.

To round up, we have John, the sponsor of the Bill.

Mr Blair: I thank those who are presenting for being here today.

I will pick up on Brian's point about one dog going underground. My Bill permits two dogs, and Brian described using one dog in that scenario. The two dogs could be used for the protection of habitat, biodiversity and livestock. Therefore, that provision is there.

Mr McCullough: Do you mean the two-dog bit?

Mr Blair: Yes. You specifically mentioned one dog going underground.

Mr McCullough: One terrier, yes.

Mr Blair: I am pointing out that the Bill will allow two dogs to be used in that scenario, so I want to clarify that.
I stress that I am not associating the people who are in front of me with the activity that I am about to describe. I know some of Steven's work from my previous working life, and I stress that I am not in any way implying that anybody here has conducted what I am about to describe. However, my second point is on the generalisations about the need for legislation. I assume that you are familiar with the USPCA's report of 2023 about badger baiting. People are often referred to as "dog people" and "terrier men"—.

Mr McCullough: Is that me?

Mr Blair: It is all of you.

Mr McCullough: Right.

Mr Blair: That report was published in spring 2023. That organisation reported to the Committee in the recent past and said that it had 576 reports last year of organised cruelty, which is more than 10 a week, and that does not count the incidents that are not reported. The report clearly states that:

that is where we are here —:

Facebook posts show that, because the people involved post their trophies, and they show very bloody scenes. I stress that I am not associating that with what you do, but do you understand that there needs to be legislation to bring an end to that abject cruelty? How do you propose to do that without robust legislation to stop that abject cruelty?

Mr McCullough: That is already illegal.

Mr Mulcahy: There is existing legislation on that.

Mr Blair: Killing foxes or deer using dogs is not illegal.

Mr Mulcahy: We do not condone any of those activities. We are a recognised organisation that works with a strict code of conduct and rules under the existing legislation, namely the Animal Welfare Act and the Wildlife Act. We do not condone that behaviour. We also see those posts, and the people who are doing that in the countryside need to be stopped, but we do not condone or recognise it.

Mr Blair: I am not suggesting that you do.

Mr Mulcahy: It is like comparing a licensed firearm holder to an armed bank robber because they both have guns. We often say that there are men with terriers and there are terrier men. Our members form the IWTF, and they are proper terrier men who know the laws and legislation. We have rules, and anyone who is seen to be bringing terrier work into disrepute or who works outside the law is expelled from our organisation.

Mr John Phelan (Irish Working Terrier Federation): We have put nearly 20 years of our lives into this organisation to bring in codes of conduct and education in order to improve the image of terrier work. We have met the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine in the South, and it understands our message, what we are at and how we go about things. To try to smear our organisation with things that have no real relevance to us is not relevant.

Mr Blair: I could not have been more clear in saying that I was not associating them.

Mr Phelan: You still said it.

The Chairperson (Ms D Armstrong): To be fair, John did not smear your organisation, but you have made your code of conduct clear.

Mr Blair: Chair, I made it clear that I was not associating any of the people here with what I described. The question was not at all about your work but about whether you agree that there needs to be robust legislation to deal with the scenario that I described, as highlighted in the USPCA's report of 2023. I think that I said that on three or four separate occasions, and I will say it again: I was not associating any of what was presented today or any of you with that activity. However, I was pointing out that it happens under that guise.

Mr McCullough: That would be more of a policing issue, because that type of stuff is already illegal.

Mr Blair: There are rarely convictions.

Mr McCullough: That is a good policing thing. If there are convictions, that is policing carried out as it should be. However, this is not about hunting with dogs. At a football match, some people will watch football and some people will go for a riot. We hunt foxes for a reason, which is for farmers.

The Chairperson (Ms D Armstrong): If you are content, we will bring it to a close. You set out clearly your code of conduct, and it has been really helpful, Brian, to hear how you use the terriers above and below ground. That has really helped the Committee.

Owen, you made a reference to Merlin Becker from the Game and Wildlife Conservation Trust. He will give evidence to us next week. I thank you very much for being in this morning. We have a busy schedule to get through.

Mr McCullough: Thank you, folks.