SOUTH .COUNTY. DUBLIN .HUNT.-ON-31th MARCH-AT CHARLEY O NEALS-ABBEYFEILD FARM-CO.KILDARE-CLANE

NO: Kate Hoey says the ban in England has created a huge waste of money and court time without making foxes any safer. It is extraordinary that anyone is even asking this question. Not only because there has never been any evidence to justify a ban in terms of animal welfare, but also because any Irish politician need only look as far as England and Wales to see the cruelty, confusion and controversy a ban would cause.

I grew up on a farm in Co Antrim and have been a vocal opponent of the legislation to ban hunting in England and Wales. Make no mistake, the ban in England and Wales had nothing to do with the welfare of the fox. Hunting became a political football in a game played by many MPs as revenge for nearly every slight inflicted on them during long years in opposition - payback for the miners! Labour MPs became increasingly obsessed with the issue, so the Government set up an inquiry into hunting with dogs. "Hunting", said the Burns report "seriously compromises the welfare of the fox", which should be no surprise since the point of the activity is to kill them, but found that "insensibility and death will normally follow within a matter of seconds once the fox is caught" and concluded "none of the legal methods of fox control is without difficulty from an animal welfare perspective". The inquiry was therefore inconclusive and certainly did not sustain a case for making hunting illegal. Cabinet ministers, like Jack Straw, urged caution but they bargained without the single-mindedness of a zealot-like group of backbench MPs willing to blackmail the government over other controversial legislation. One colleague, Gerald Kauffman, even threatened to vote against the government, for the first time, on health service reform if hunting was not banned. He and others saw no irony in this ridiculous sense of priorities.

Eventually, after 700 hours of parliamentary debate and nearly eight years after Labour came to power, a ban on hunting came into force on February 18th, 2005. In the weeks before the vote, government had received criticism from every part of the media: from normally supportive left-leaning papers like the Guardian and Independent which held no brief for hunting but were appalled at the illiberal behaviour of parliament, to huge circulation popular dailies like the Sun and the Daily Mail.

So, three years on, where are we? Every pack of foxhounds that was hunting in February 2005 is still hunting. Some ride out with eagles or with just two hounds to hunt within exemptions in the Act. Others hunt trails of fox-based scent to recreate traditional hunting. Hunting rabbits remains legal, although hunting hares does not. All are absolutely determined that they will survive to see the Hunting Act repealed and are gaining support rather than losing it. More people hunt than ever before, and more than 300,000 members of the public supported their local hunt last St Stephen's Day. The law has been ridiculed and derided and the case for repeal is overwhelming.

The hunting community has now become one of the most active and effective political campaigning groups in the country. MPs in marginal seats who supported the ban were targeted at the last election, 29 anti-hunting MPs on the target list lost their seats, not just in rural areas but also some right in central London as hunts sent their supporters in to key marginal constituencies.

They are not the only losers. A few hunts have been targeted by animal rights activists and subject to endless allegations about their hunting activities. Police officers with many better things to do are being asked to make judgments about whether hounds are hunting the scent of a dead fox or the scent of a live one, or whether they are hunting a hare or a rabbit. A very few huntsmen have been dragged through the courts. One, Tony Wright of the Exmoor Foxhounds, was found guilty in the Magistrates Court and his conviction was only thrown out two years after the legal proces

The Government has been accused of destroying a 150-year-old tradition after effectively banning the country's only stag hunt.

Cracking the green whip, Environment Minister John Gormley banned the Ward Union Hunt in Co Meath from allowing hounds to actually pursue a tame stag though the countryside this Christmas