HUNTERS WITH greyhounds are coming south of the Border and hunting without permission and causing damage, the joint Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture was told yesterday.
The complaint was made by the chairman, Johnny Brady, who said he had received many reports from farmers in the north Meath area about the behaviour of those involved.
“They are causing damage to fences, frightening sheep and other farm animals, and react in a very aggressive way if challenged,” said Mr Brady.
He said their actions were also endangering bio-security on farms because there was a danger of them spreading disease.
The committee, which was discussing the Disease of Animals Amendment Act 2001, was told by Minister for Agriculture Brendan Smith he was also aware of the problem along Border areas.
“I know there are problems but this is an issue of enforcement, and I will be meeting the Northern Ireland Minister for Agriculture, Michelle Gildernew, soon and we will look at the issue of enforcement.”
He had come to the committee to ask for a resolution for the continuation of Section 17A of the Diseases of Animals Act which gives powers of search to authorised officers when investigating animal disease issues.
Seán Sherlock, Labour’s spokesman on agriculture, expressed concern at the power to carry out personal and property searches given to the authorised officers under the legislation, and wanted to know how often these were used.
The Minister said there was no centralised record of the number of times the powers were used, but he understood they were “seldom used”.
He said Section 17A of the Act had been introduced during the foot-and-mouth disease outbreak to help control the spread of that disease.
It gave officers special powers which could be exercised in cases of reasonable suspicion that a disease “is or may be present”.
“Members of the committee can be assured that the powers provided under the section will continue to be used only in such circumstances as are appropriate and as are contemplated by the law,” said the Minister.
He said the powers were needed in the event of outbreaks of not only foot-and-mouth but there was a threat from avian influenza and bluetongue, as well as emerging diseases such as African swine fever and African horse sickness.
Mr Smith said there were current threats from bluetongue.
He confirmed that the department had one million doses of a bluetongue vaccine which would be used to vaccinate animals within a 20km zone if a disease of the same serotype was confirmed in Ireland.
The Minister also told committee members he could not impose a ban on the import of animals from other countries because of EU Single Market regulations. This also ruled out the use of quarantine as a control measure.
The committee agreed to recommend Section 17A continue in force until March 2010.