By Letters

Copyright newsletter

Animal protection groups across the UK and Ireland are celebrating the news that Scotland is set to ban greyhound racing. This welcome development comes shortly after New Zealand, Wales, and the Australian state of Tasmania pledged to end the sport. England and Northern Ireland will soon be the only parts of the United Kingdom to permit greyhound racing. Sadly, the Irish Republic remains a hotbed of this cruel activity. This jurisdiction exports the majority of native racing dogs to Britain to supply the demand from its increasingly embattled greyhound industry. While I don’t like to see anyone out of work and would never take pleasure in the downfall of a business or industry, I have to make an exception with this one. If it were only a matter of dogs happily running around a track for a minute or two at a time, the sport would be as harmless as a dog chasing a ball or a balloon on a sandy beach. Unfortunately, it is a deeply stressful, dangerous activity. Many dogs never make it past a few weeks or months of life. Unwanted greyhounds are either culled, due to underperformance or poor prospects, or exported to non-animal welfare compliant jurisdictions. Injuries arising from track racing are commonplace, and invariably result in euthanasia. These include toe injuries, strained tendons, torn muscles, and arthritic joints. England will almost certainly ban greyhound racing, possibly in the near future, as the momentum towards abolition there is unstoppable. Instead of waiting for that to happen, after which the industry in both the Republic and Northern Ireland will no longer be viable with the export market gone, both jurisdictions should ban it now. Let’s rescue these animals from an industry that consumes and exploits them like a non-living raw material. It denies them what is a dog’s birthright: a place in the garden or on the coach. John Fitzgerald, Co Kilkenny Unionists have been weak on Irish Sea border and legacy How long can the DUP and UUP continue in government and work the Windsor Framework? I have little doubt that some of their big egos stop them from doing what is right and admitting that Jim Allister’s assessment of the border remaining and even tightening, leading to an all Ireland economy, was correct. We also have coming down the line a weak Secretary of State, Hilary Benn, being led by the nose by Dublin. That might lead some people to fear that he is like his late father, who was an advocate of a united Ireland and who invited Gerry Adams to Westminster. Is he going to allow republicans costly enquiries while innocent victims of IRA terrorism have little hope of receiving justice? We have seen them already making a difference of importance by having a public inquiry into the Finucane murder, which is only one of many murders in the Troubles, and which has already had multiple investigations. Many believe that the Republic are culpable for not preventing IRA murders and ethnic cleansing of Protestants during the Troubles by colluding with the IRA and their refusal to send IRA wanted terrorists back to face justice in Northern Ireland. They have been less than helpful with inquiries into Kingsmill etc. Unlike this treacherous British government, the Republic refuse to hang out their dirty washing in public. We see DUP ministers going about like statesmen and stateswomen full of their own importance as republicans literally are getting away with murder. The coming weeks will tell a story of Benn and what he has conceded to Dublin. So far he has treated unionists with disdain with little fight back from unionists. No wonder the TUV have gained ground on the other two unionist parties because people are seeing them for what they are: weak on the Union and deceiving people about the border in the Irish Sea. If as expected the new legacy agreement is a whitewash and their is a hardening of the sea border, then the chickens will have come home to roost and we will see just what the the DUP and UUP are made. John Mulholland, Doagh