Letters to the editor: We must examine relationship with animals

EDITOR – Viewers were left shocked and reeling from the footage aired on Monday night’s RTÉ Investigates programme. 

It’s not easy for most people to watch calves being kicked, slapped, and knocked about at marts or to learn of the long sea journeys from Ireland during which these docile, trusting animals endure unthinkable stress and torment.

Unfortunately, what we saw on the programme represents only a small part of a bigger and more sinister picture. Ireland is close to being the cruelty capital of Europe, though still in second place behind Spain, with its bullfighting and animal torture fiestas.

Across the nation, animals of all kinds … domestic, agricultural, and wild find themselves on the receiving end of man’s inhumanity. We are one of only seven countries in the world that allow greyhound racing, an industry that regards dogs as commodities and treats them worse than the unfortunate calves in the documentary. In some cases animals are abandoned when their running days are over.

But Ireland goes further than the other six countries that still have this ‘sport’.  It receives State funding here to ensure that it continues even with track attendances at a record low.

And, as if to put Ireland in contention for ‘cruellest nation award’, the industry encompasses hare coursing, which is almost unknown beyond our shores. At 70 venues nationwide, hares are terrorised in broad daylight for a cheap thrill.

You can see the animals being flung into the air, a bit like the calf we saw casually tossed screeching from a truck in the RTÉ footage.

Foxes are hounded until the dogs rip the skin from their bones ... driven pheasant shoots are staged at which the semi-tame birds waddle up to their killers to be blasted ... and intensive farming methods involving pigs and fowl involve a degree of unnatural confinement and suffering that should provoke as much such outrage as the RTE expose.

We need to reappraise our relationship with the animal kingdom. These creatures share the earth with us. They have nervous systems like us. They feel pain, and even the pangs of grief and loneliness, as we do.

We at least owe it to them not to make their short, humble lives a veritable hell-on-earth.

John Fitzgerald,

Callan,

Co Kilkenny 

Time to stand behind our barristers

EDITOR – This week barristers are taking to the steps protesting at the State’s failure to properly fund the criminal justice system, particularly for those who practice at district court level.

The criminal justice system is set up to fail those who can’t afford to hide behind independent resources.  

Working all those years to gain a professional qualification, working for free for one year, and then begging for your existence in a heavily regulated industry, would not be permitted to happen in any other profession.

And if it did happen, the people we hire to try and put it right are the ones the State chooses to ignore while it takes its time exploiting those who keep the criminal justice system moving at its core level. 

If a student nurse or a qualified healthcare professional were to be treated this way, there would be uproar, and rightly so.  

Ministers would be out in force, populism would be top of the charts, there would be committees to beat the band. But not for the barrister practising at district court level under the criminal legal aid scheme.  

I stand in support of all criminal practitioners who have been left behind by empty promises and well-crafted speeches.

I am a healthcare professional, and I am paid for the work I do.

Fiona Gray

Dublin 15.

RTÉ industry exposé was an eye-opener

EDITOR – The RTÉ Investigates programme on Monday was an appalling indictment of the bloated and out-of-control Irish dairy industry under the supervision of a not-fit-for-purpose Department of Agriculture. Our factory farm industry is driven by greed resulting in the over-production of unwanted calves which are handled in marts and by hauliers with barbaric cruelty.

The present dairy industry is a major contributor of pollution in our rivers, lakes and estuaries, endangering our drinking water with the tacit support of our Department of Agriculture. 

Well done to RTÉ. The tenacity of their journalists is exemplary and the explicit exposé is certainly an eye-opener.

Don Teegan,

Union Hall

Sad that TDs voted to abolish waiting period

EDITOR – It’s sad that the majority of TDs voted to get rid of the three-day waiting period for mothers to reconsider abortion.

Have they any mercy or compassion for the unborn?  

We must remember abortion is against the law of God and Annette Condon’s letter last week regarding the levels of glee and delight among the supporters of this amendment is a sad reflection of our society. 

Jeremiah McCarthy,  

Tawnies Grove, 

Clonakilty