Shoppers in Dublin’s city centre were met with the sight of animal rights activists doused in red paint today as they held an anti-fur protest.
Two women held posters depicting a dog racoon, which campaigners said was skinned alive on a fur farm in China.
"Most people who wear fur today are people who just don't know what goes on behind the scenes," Animal Rights Action Network campaign co-ordinator John Carmody said. "They're almost always skinned alive because there's no way of killing them with anaesthetic individually – it would take too much time so it's literally like a production line."
He said the protest, which is due to be repeated in all of Ireland's major cities, has two aims.
"We want people to know that their fur actually had a face and that every year animals are trapped, their drowned, their beaten to death in the wild or they're gassed."
"Our second message is that we're asking and we're urging the Government that the proposed legislation in the agreed programme for Government is brought in by the end of the year. We want this legislation to be passed in the Dáil by 2012, a historic piece of legislation for the animal welfare movement here in Ireland
will mean that fur farms will banned in Ireland."
He said there are "roughly five farms in Ireland that any one time that can house up to 140,000 mink and we believe there's also silver fox too."
Mr Carmody said that fur had decreased in popularity in recent years: "Being seen wearing a full length fur coat these days is like a public liability – it's about as popular as a spot on your face."
Commenting on the release of mink from a farm in Donegal last month Mr Carmody said that the preferred approach to animal rights is the legislative route.
"Hopefully we'll just move towards this legislation…which will mean that fur farming will be banned on grounds of cruelty to animals, supporting the legal, professional route," he said. "We're hoping that by 2012 that there won't be any need for anyone to get these animals out of such terrible, heartbreaking conditions."