Senators’ claws out over mink farm closure delays
IT’S not just Rihanna who has faced backlash over her devotion to fur.
A spat between Fine Gael and Green Party senators over the slow progress in closing Ireland’s last three mink farms required ministerial intervention to calm tempers this week.
The pledge to end the practice was seen as a key victory for the Greens in the Programme for Government.
Support for a swift closure of the farms accelerated after it was revealed the animals are highly susceptible to becoming infected with Covid-19 and spreading the virus in intensive farms.
Ireland’s small mink industry consists of three farms in counties Laois, Kerry and Donegal, which employ around 30 workers. There are currently 120,000 minks on the three farms.
However, unexpected delays in legislation, which was initially introduced last October, have led to elevated tensions between Fine Gael and their Green coalition colleagues. In a series of testy exchanges, Green Party chairperson Pauline O’Reilly demanded: ‘I would like an explanation from Fine Gael, in particular, as to why it is drawing this out month after month and going into another year of fur farming and this hideous practice.’ Fine Gael’s leader in the Seanad, Regina Doherty, noted Senator O’Reilly’s concerns, expressed ‘in some strange tones’, on the ‘drawn out delay’ to the legislation.
But she insisted the delay was solely to ensure ‘that the 30-plus workers who are losing their jobs and the three farmers who are losing their income, get a fair deal’.
And outside of the Seanad, the Irish Mail on Sunday has learned a series of private exchanges between Fine Gael and Green representatives on the issue became even more heated.
A ministerial source said: ‘There was even more fur flying than in a mink farm – the top ministers had to be brought in to calm things down.’ They added: ‘A deal has been done – the minks have a stay of execution until Easter, but their day is done.’