Elliott calls for fox hunting regulation as part of animal welfare legislation

Alliance MLA John Blair is seeking to use a private members bill to ban the practice – despite his party holding the DAERA ministry which could ban the practice itself. However, it is unclear whether such a ban would get through the Executive.

Tom Elliott says that existing animal welfare laws should be reviewed by the DAERA minister Andrew Muir, which would regulate rather than ban the practice.

The Fermanagh MLA told the News Letter: “The department should initially review animal welfare legislation and see whether there is any gaps in that. That would include any gaps that might impact on hunting with dogs – and the department should see if there are any amendments required to that legislation that might resolve the issue within their policies and strategies”.

He said it would be “a way of regulating hunting” – and after a review the department would have an overall better picture of where animal welfare legislation stands.

Mr Elliott said the point of doing it this way would be to avoid extreme cruelty to animals – but prevent an outright ban on country sports.

Mr Blair has said in the past that Northern Ireland remains “the only part of the UK without such a ban”.

The South Antrim MLA said: “In 2023 watching animals being ripped apart should not be a sporting calendar event. I fully intend to re-table my Private Members’ Bill to outlaw the practice at the earliest given opportunity.

“The Alliance Party wants to see the elimination of all cruelty towards animals and part of that is the banning of hunting wild mammals with dogs”.

The DUP’s Edwin Poots – speaking before he became speaker – said a previous private members bill would have had the potential to criminalise thousands of innocent dog owners.

He said: “These issues are better considered and brought forward by departmental legislators, after appropriate public consultation”.