THE IRISH COURSING Club has refused to provide evidence for its claim, repeated by the junior minister for agriculture, that hare coursing contributes €70m to the Irish economy annually. 

The argument around the ethics of hare coursing has heated up again this month as the Dáil debated a bill to ban the blood sport. 

TDs will vote tomorrow night on the bill put forward by People Before Profit TD Paul Murphy, following a two-hour debate on the proposed legislation last week. 

During last week’s Dáil debate, junior minister in the Department of Agriculture and Fianna Fáil TD Niall Collins claimed that “independent economic analysis estimated that coursing contributed approximately €70.7 million annually to the Irish economy”.

He said the vast majority of this directly benefited rural communities, “with €37.9 million attributable to the life cycle of the coursing greyhound itself”.

The same figure was quoted by CEO of the Irish Coursing Club, DJ Liston, on RTÉ’s Liveline programme on Thursday, who said the figure came from a report carried out by economist Jim Power in 2022. 

He said €70m was the turnover figure for the industry.

When The Journal contacted the Irish Coursing Club to request a copy of the 2022 report, Liston refused to provide it as he said it first had to be presented to Irish Coursing Club members in the coming weeks. 

Speaking in the Dáil today, Paul Murphy called on the government to correct the record about the €70m figure. 

“That independent analysis simply does not exist,” Murphy claimed. 

Speaking to The Journal, Niall Collins said he has seen and read the report himself but that it is not his to release.

“It’s authored by Jim Power, who is a reputable economic commentator. If Paul Murphy and others want to discredit the report without seeing it, well then that is another story.

“There’s no mystery about this, I’ve seen the report… Once the ICC present the report to their membership, they will publish it,” Collins said. 

The Journal has contacted Jim Power to ask for evidence to support the €70m figure.

The vote on the bill will take place tomorrow night (Wednesday) and is expected to be defeated given that Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael and Sinn Féin are all set to vote against it. 

The Social Democrats, Labour and the Greens will support the bill, while Independent and Aontú TDs will have a free vote. 

Hare coursing is a controversial sport that involves a hare being released in an enclosure and chased down by greyhounds, before being let go into the wild.

Although the dogs are muzzled, the hares can still be injured and even killed. Under Ireland’s Wildlife Act, hares are a protected species, but despite this, Ireland is one of only three EU countries where hare coursing is still legal.