This issue once again exposes a growing divide in the country between those who live and work in rural Ireland and those who comment on it from a distance with little understanding of what life is actually like on the ground in rural Ireland. Foxes are a real and present danger to livestock and livelihoods and, increasingly, to public safety. Only last week, there were reports of a woman in Cavan being attacked by a fox. That is not something that rural families ever expected to hear. It is, however, a warning of what happens when the wildlife population is allowed to spiral out of control. Farmers see the consequences every year. Lambs are slaughtered during the lambing season. Hens are ripped limb from limb in a single night. Years of careful breeding are wiped out without warning. This is the reality of nature when it is not properly managed. Rural Ireland is a managed landscape and always has been. Without management, it does not magically balance itself but deteriorates. We only have to look at the deer crisis to see the consequences. Animals are roaming the roads. Cars are destroyed and families are put at risk with no accountability. Do we really want the same situation with foxes? Do we want sick and starving animals wandering roadways and no longer fit to source food? Do we want them dying slow deaths that serve no one? City-based TDs, who know nothing about this reality, are attacking rural traditions and practices that exist precisely to keep the balance and protect both animals and people. One of the loudest anti-rural voices is that of Deputy Coppinger, who claims to speak for communities. What does it say about her commitment when she had no difficulty in objecting to a development of over 200 apartments in her own city? This type of objection is devastating to communities where people across the country are desperate for a roof over their heads. We are told she cares about communities, yet she denigrates the Common Agricultural Policy, a policy designed to keep farm families afloat, families who have worked the same land for decades, often centuries. She dismisses it as part of what she calls a global capitalist system of agriculture. That kind of ideological thinking has a long and dark history. Wherever it has been imposed on farming communities it has driven families off their land, stripped them of ownership and handed agriculture over to the state in so-called communal systems that resulted in starvation and the deaths of millions. That is the ideology of Deputy Coppinger. That is what this so-called Bill is based on, anti-farmer, anti-rural poisonous ideology that wants to punish those who work to own land and work that land for the betterment of themselves and their communities. Rural Ireland does not take lectures from extremists.

Sentiment score: -0.12

I have none. I have never been to one in my life.

Sentiment score: 0.00

It is not her speaking time. Respect the House.

Sentiment score: 0.24

A disgrace.

Sentiment score: -0.49