Resistance by the hunting fraternity to this government's attempt to improve animal welfare through the proposed Puppy Farming Bill is hardly surprising – after all, hunters and coursers routinely frighten, hurt and kill animals for fun. It is annoying though, that these same people have been allowed to turn the current discourse on this bill into a 'rural v urban' debate.

As someone who grew up on a farm and still resides in rural Ireland, I resent the implication that common decency and compassion is somehow the preserve of city dwellers. It is particularly galling, by the way, when this message is delivered in the Dublin 4 accent of some of hunting's most prominent spokespersons.

If these gentlemen were to get off their horses or out of their four-wheel drives for longer than it takes to kill a fox, then they would soon discover that the great majority of us who are of rural Ireland deplore animal abuse, whether it is perpetrated for profit or for fun. I don't know anyone in my rural community who has a problem with dog-breeding establishments of any kind being subject to inspection. How could anyone with a genuine concern for animal welfare have a problem with that?

Could it be that if the practices of hunt breeding kennels were at last exposed to public view, then the hunting fraternity would have to answer some very awkward questions indeed? Questions such as, where do all the hounds who have outlived their five-seasons hunting career go? Hunting hounds have a natural life span of 12-14 years. Yet, on the admission of the hunters themselves, these animals are not homeable, and would have to be killed should hunting be banned. What happens to the dogs who are bred to surplus and never make it into the hunting pack? Or the ones who have failed to make the grade during the cub hunting season when fox cubs are used as live bait to blood the hounds? It is, perhaps, no wonder that the hunters are afraid of the Puppy Farming Bill.

It is way past time that those of us who live in rural Ireland and are opposed to wanton cruelty to animals (and make no mistake, we are in the majority) had our voices heard by both the media and our public representatives. Rural Ireland has had enough of hunters creating an urban-rural divide where none exists, in an effort to divert attention from the fact that the vast majority of Irish people oppose killing animals for fun.

Nuala Donlon,

Watervale,

Rooskey, Co Roscommon.