Hunting with Dogs Bill: Researcher informs committee members on consultation findings

Addressing the committee, Chair Diana Armstrong said a researcher from RAIS “was there to talk about the bill as introduced and its provisions, rather than any opinion on whether hunting with dogs is a positive or negative activity”.

“I'm going to look really at a couple of areas, really the background and the current legal framework,” he said.

"Before I'm going to look at three specific areas that I think are maybe relevant to committee scrutiny, those being the provisions of the bill itself, the consultation exercise, and the potential issues and questions that the research paper raises.”

He said that “in practical terms, hunting certain mammals with dogs is currently legal in Northern Ireland”.

"So, turning to the rest of the UK, and I should have said the Ireland situation is very similar to ours.

"There is no dedicated legislation at present”.

The researcher said the “issue is dealt with through wildlife provisions”.

"There was an effort earlier this year to bring a private members' bill in the Dail, which would have sought to ban fox hunting, but that fell at the second stage,” he added.

“Looking across the water to England and Wales, they operate under the Hunting Act 2004, while Scotland currently operates under the Hunting with Dogs Scotland Act 2023.

"All three jurisdictions prohibit hunting wild mammals with dogs, subject to various exemptions and exceptions.

"The bill would broadly align Northern Ireland with developments elsewhere in the UK, though in several respects it would go further than both England, Wales, and Scotland”.

He added that “this is a contested issue and an issue which people feel incredibly passionate about”.

He added that their “focus is purely on the bill provisions and how they would operate”.

"Moving on then to look at the scale of hunting with dogs activity in Northern Ireland,” he said. “That has actually proven challenging to quantify because it includes such a wide range of activities, from organised hunts to terrier work, trail hunting, falconry, and shooting, involving both individuals and indeed organised groups,” he said.

"What we have been able to establish in the paper is that there are currently around 20 organised hunts that are active in Northern Ireland, according to Bailey's Hunting Directory, and those operate across several counties and involve foxhounds, harriers, beagles and bloodhounds.

"Fox hunting, when we looked at those 20 organised hunts, appeared to be the most common organised activity.

"There appear to be 544 dogs that are involved that we identified, but dog numbers weren't reported in all instances.”

Turning to the results of a public consultation, the researcher said “the public consultation on the bill proposals ran between October 2024 and January 2025, and it generated 12,011 responses, which I have to say, in our experiences, is a significant number for a members' bill”.

"Of those responses, 4,864 respondents identified themselves as Northern Ireland residents,” he added.

“In terms of the main findings, the consultation recorded a majority support for banning hunting with dogs, banning trail hunter trail hunting, and effectively landowner liability provisions”.

He said that “when you actually looked at the Northern Ireland specific data, 72% of respondents from Northern Ireland supported banning hunting with dogs, approximately 70% supported banning trail hunting, and around 73% supported land reliability”.

He said that themes emerged from the consultation, with "opponents to the provisions in the bill tended to focus on the requirement for pest control, questions around biodiversity management, rural traditions, economic impacts, and enforcement costs.

"The responses, I think, reveal that there are divergent views on these issues and there is not a lot of consensus.”