One of the great debates on the neighbouring island is about the banning of fox hunting as a sport, an issue which has also generated great heat in Ireland.
Recently on television, the British Prime Minister, Mr Blair, repeated that "it will be banned" when asked about government policy.
It has now emerged that fox hunting is likely to be outlawed in the fledgling Scottish parliament before the House of Commons gets down to the job.
This is because there is no upper house in the Scottish parliament and opponents of the sport believe that the British House of Lords will oppose any move to ban the sport.
Strange though it may seem, Mullingar, Co Westmeath, has become the centre of the fox hunting debate in the Republic.
Few counties in Ireland can boast Co Westmeath's total of four hunts.
Traditionally, the boast of a good family in the midlands was: "A priest in the family, a pump in the yard and the hunt once a year." That day appears to be over.
Mullingar Town Commission is one of the few local authorities which has passed a motion, unanimously, calling on the Government to outlaw the "so-called sport of fox hunting".
However, since the motion was passed there are new members on the commission following the recent local government elections.
The proposer of the motion, Mr Frank McIntyre, found there was at least one dissenting voice at the last commission meeting.
He had asked that the Mullingar motion be forwarded to go on the agenda of the annual meeting of the Association of Municipal Authorities in Ireland (AMAI), which will be held next month.
However, commissioner Mr Martin Hynes asked that the motion be amended before being allowed to go forward to the AMAI conference. This was supported by a new commissioner, Mr Jim Bourke.
Mr Hynes was told, however, that a similar motion could not be tabled at the commissioners' meeting within six months and so the Mullingar motion would go forward.
According to Ms Aideen Yourell, the Mullingar-based public relations officer for the Irish Council Against Blood Sports, what is happening in Mullingar as regards a ban is not unique in the State.
"There is a growing opposition to fox hunting in Ireland and we are seeing more evidence of that all the time. "We want to know when we will cease being the last barbarians left in Europe who allow this cruel practice and that is being articulated by others, not just us."
She said there were now at least four hunts in the county: the Westmeath Hunt; Glasson/Moate; Streamstown; and the Brosna Hunt.
Ms Yourell said her organisation would not oppose "drag" hunting, where a scent is laid down and the activity could be carried out without the fox being torn apart by hounds.
She said she did not see an influx of hunting people from England and Scotland if hunting was banned there as Irish farmers did not want hunting on their lands.
She said her organisation was hoping to build on the success of the vote taken at Mullingar Town Commission. It was taken without prompting by her organisation.
"There have been two others that we know about, Ennis and Leixlip, and we believe more will join.
"We are hoping that the county councils will also move in the same direction."
This week, Ms Yourell will travel from Mullingar to the RDS to try to persuade the Minister for Agriculture, Mr Walsh, to ban live fox hunting and to end the practice of digging out foxes which escaped underground from hounds.