It is time to put an end to greyhound racing industry

KEN FOXE’S article – Greyhound racing row over dogs found covered in filth (MoS Feb, 6) –highlights once again why so many people in this country want to see an end to greyhound racing.

Greyhound Racing Ireland’s attempts to distance itself from the plight of the dogs at the centre of this case simply won’t wash. These greyhounds may not have been registered to race, but they were bred to race.

They are, no doubt, part of that huge cohort of dogs who don’t run fast enough to make it on to the track. These two dogs survived, at least, unlike the over 6,000 such dogs killed each year – as identified in the Preferred Results Report which was based on industry figures.

The three greyhound industry representatives quoted in the article were never going to admit this of course.

Rather, Ger Dollard seemed to be more concerned that the photo of these dogs might damage the reputation of the greyhound industry – what reputation?

Or worse still, be used to increase donations to the DSPCA – last year Greyhound Racing Ireland received €19.2m in public funding, while the DSPCA and 97 other such organisations who valiantly try to clean up the mess created by the greyhound industry, had to share €3.7m between them.

Barry Coleman, GRI’s Welfare Manager – yes, welfare! – tried to explain away the behaviour of the traumatised animals as stemming from a nervous disposition.

And what is one to make of the utterly absurd claim by the new chief executive of GRI, Dearbhla O’Brien that like the DSPCA, the greyhound industry has the welfare of greyhounds at its core.

Could somebody please tell Ms O’Brien that the organisation she now leads over-breeds dogs to the tune of 1,000% annually, that it cannot account for the whereabouts and wellbeing of 6,000-plus dogs every year, and that in the last seven years, 938 greyhounds have had to be killed by vets on Irish tracks due to injuries sustained while running, while another 2,763 dogs were injured, some so badly they had to be killed subsequently.

Does that look like an industry that puts the lives and wellbeing of dogs at its core?

Nuala Donlon, Greyhound Action Ireland.

Over for O’Rourke

I READ your story ‘RTÉ will bring O’Rourke back in from the cold’ (MoS, Feb. 6) after the Golfgate ruling. So we are likely to see on TV or hear on radio Seán O’Rourke interviewing his political friends and cronies who he was dining, drinking, golfing, and generally socialising with for a couple of days beforehand, and then we are supposed to believe that he is really going to take them to task on national TV or radio on any important issue.

I’m sorry for O’Rourke but his bubble has burst.

Dennis Dennehy, Dublin.

Plans permitted?

I REFER to your article on Sean Ross Abbey (MoS, Feb. 6).

Did the planning authority grant permission for development works in and around Sean Ross Abbey?

Surely an area of such sensitivity cannot be built upon.

I hope all the little children that perished in Sean Ross Abbey and elsewhere are located and given a Christian burial.

Only then can these angels sleep in peace.

M. Ó Saoire, via email.

Lacking force

AS an old soldier of some 40 years service, I am greatly encouraged to see that the Commission on the Defence Forces has ‘bitten the bullet’ and produced a report that honestly acknowledges the current pathetic state of our Defence Forces on one hand, while on the other proposing a challenging ambition for the forces’ future.

Alongside the many issues that involve considerable budgetary input, the report must be appreciated especially for, in the first instance, laying bare the mores of an unacceptable masculine culture that pertains in the force, a canker that can and must be dealt with immediately.

Secondly, the tax-payer now has an authoritative perspective on our Army, Navy Service and Air Corps so as to be properly informed, to understand and to appreciate what national defence and security means and what differing levels of it costs in the context of all other elements that underpin the nation’s future prosperity and wellbeing.

Ultimately the future of the Defence Forces depends on wellfounded and consequent wellfunded ‘buy-in’ by our citizens.

Kilkenny city.