Greyhound Action Ireland welcomes Scottish ban on greyhound racing

Greyhound advocacy group Greyhound Action Ireland has welcomed the announcement this weekend that the Scottish Government is to support a ban on greyhound racing.

This comes just months after the state of Tasmania announced that it is to phase out greyhound racing by June 30^th, 2029. A ban on greyhound racing in Wales was confirmed in February of this year, while New Zealand announced a similar ban last December. This hugely abusive activity was banned in Mexico in July 2024.

“All the welfare concerns that have prompted the bans in Scotland, Wales, New Zealand and Tasmania – the track deaths, the injuries, the doping – exist in this country,” said Nuala Donlon, spokesperson for Greyhound Action Ireland. “In fact, the welfare abuses here are even worse since the Irish greyhound industry breeds far more greyhounds than it needs for racing, or can export to the UK. As a result, thousands of healthy young dogs who are surplus to requirement are killed or disappear each year”

In 2024, 389 greyhounds were injured at races around Ireland with over half – 202 dogs – killed as a result of the injuries sustained, making 2024 the worst year for deaths since records began in 2014. To put it in perspective, 5% of all the dogs put out to race on racetracks last year were killed as result of their injuries. A further 11 dogs died at official and unofficial trials in 2024.

In the first four months of this year, 56 greyhounds have died on racetracks around this country, and a further 52 dogs have been injured. Six dogs died on one day alone, on April the 25^th. If track deaths continue at this rate for the rest of the year, then 2025 will be even worse than 2024.

Information taken from the Irish Greyhound Board’s own traceability system (RCETS) shows that thousands of dogs are being killed each year because they are surplus to requirement. Of the 7,630 non-coursing greyhounds born in 2021 who are still on this island 47% (3,583) are dead or unaccounted for. We know for sure that 2,751 are dead. The oldest of those dogs would be just four and a half!

It should be noted that the number of dead and unaccounted for dogs is likely to be far higher as recent analysis shows that dogs from Northern Ireland are being incorrectly categorised as ‘active’ on the traceability system long after they have stopped racing.

“The Irish Greyhound Board’s much-vaunted traceability was put in place in order to disprove claims that thousands of healthy dogs are being killed each year, but it has done no such thing, It has, instead, confirmed our worst fears,” said Ms. Donlon. “Indeed, the kill rate here is likely to increase with the closure of tracks in the UK, since 85% of greyhounds raced in the UK are imported from Ireland,” said Ms. Donlon.

The Irish greyhound racing industry is totally unviable economically, and relies entirely on state funding to survive. Last year it received 19.4 million euros from the state. Since 2001 it has received €367 million from the Exchequer  – this despite the fact that it hasn’t delivered a dividend to the Irish state in over 25 years, nor is it expected to, going forward.

Following the spate of recent decisions to ban greyhound racing, this activity will soon be legal in just a handful of countries – Ireland, mainland Australia, England and the state of West Virginia in the US where just two tracks are operational. Greyhound Action Ireland is calling on this government to stop pandering to the demands of a handful of TDs in Fianna Fail, Fine Gael and the Independent Technical Group and to commit to a phasing out of the public funding of greyhound racing over the next 3-5 years.