I welcome the Minister of State’s enthusiasm and fine words. The question is whether we are going to get the action to go with it. I raise a concrete case with him today and seek action on it. It is an issue where the State is not only failing to do enough to protect biodiversity, but is actually destroying it. The issue relates to the ongoing slaughter of badgers by the Department of agriculture. The Minister of State will have seen “The Journal Investigates” report in which it states that the Department has killed more than 66,000 badgers in the past ten years. The way the badgers are killed is horrific. They are trapped in snares leading to internal organ damage, ruptured bladders and even disembowelment. This includes pregnant and lactating badgers, leaving their cubs to starve to death. Other wild animals, including more than 4,000 foxes in the past ten years, also get trapped in the snares. Ireland is the only country in Europe committed to the large-scale, Government-licensed slaughter of badgers. The snaring of badgers is banned in Scotland and Wales. According to opinion polls, in excess of two thirds of people in Ireland want it banned as well. England has promised to phase out killing badgers and replace it with a vaccination programme following scientific research that found that all the slaughter had no significant impact on bovine tuberculosis incidents in cattle. Fifteen years of research by the Department of agriculture in Ireland also found that vaccination is no less effective than culling. The real cause of the bovine tuberculosis epidemic is not badgers-----

Sentiment score: -0.25

I have another minute.

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These beautiful and innocent badgers are being made a scapegoat for industrial farming practices where dairy herd sizes have ballooned. With bigger herds and more intensive farming comes more disease. The Department of agriculture admits that killing badgers is not sustainable in the long term due to its ultimate impact on badger ecology. It knows it does not work to control bovine tuberculosis. Why on earth did it then slaughter more than 7,000 badgers last year, which was the highest number in a decade? Will the Minister of State commit today to end the irrational, State-sanctioned cruelty and biodiversity destruction?

Sentiment score: -0.12