garrettod wrote: »

Hi,

I also like the concept of a representative group emerging from here.

Much as I hate to say it, I would fear that most ministers and civil servants would be blinded by the bullsh1t - and think that if they receive a submission from a "group", "society" , "alliance" etc. then it must represent the views of significant numbers of hunters.

I think we could quickly agree on certain things and write to the Minister as a group, calling for them to be implemented. Maybe start with a few easy and reasonable requests, that could quickly be implemented and offer a few quick wins for all concerned.

There's nothing to stop us then following up with further requests or suggestions, at a later date.

Asking for commitment from the Minister on a couple of simple specifics might also help the cause - if only to ensure that any future training course providers are not allowed to have a monopoly, increase fees for their courses without Ministerial approval, evidence their qualifications and ability to correctly deliver courses etc.

If someone told me that I could get a 3-year deer licence, apply for same online (to include confirming land owners permission and their contact details) and have a decision conveyed within say 21 days - but I had to pay a €20 fee to the Dept with each application, I would see it as paying for improved services and pay it willingly. If others here agreed, that might also form the bones of a suggestion, where we are now asking for something that can be self financing over time.

If you pay, the fee is only going one direction. Dh in Ireland are doing the Npws a service. They haven’t the capacity to cull problematic deer nationally. So what we are agreeing to is doing the government’s job and pay them to do it.

I am not tight, most people on here that know me would attest to that. But I am against a fee. The turnaround in licence is just a once off cost to state to get online system up and running. Probably save them money in the long run. Why shoot our selves in the foot with this recommendation.

As for the hcap, that should be taken out of private hands and run by the Npws. But they won’t be willing to do that.

I’ve no issue doing a hcap (if they think they can teach some people here have over 20 years experience stalking) I’m only stalking a few years. But shooting 25 years plus. But I don’t want to make plonkers a fortune either. Rather see profit go to Npws so they can be properly resourced to keep people straight.

All just my own opinion can be completely wrong

tudderone wrote: »

Between our own crowd of shooting orgs, the buffoons we currently have in the dail, and the crap from the eu, its getting to a point where you wonder if its worth the trouble of being involved in shooting sports at all.

Thats the exact mentality the EU anti gun crowd want, they cant ban guns, so lets make all gun related issues so annoying, complicated and expensive that people just give up themselves

hiddenmongoose wrote: »

Why when you can get it for free?

heres another way of looking at it on fee's,
at the moment the DHL is free and we all know how much it can be a hassle to get a licence out on time and has been like this for a long time,
maybe npws are just happy to go along as is and issue them as theyve always done,because if a fee is introduced you are then paying for a service which brings you into line with any business/service that can be held accountable,can you imagine the first year this happens when guys dont get there licence for the 1st of sept(or any other licence they issue) the consumer affairs dept phones will be hopping from lads "ive paid my money where is my licence",because youd be on the phone as quick from paying your motor tax online and not recieve your disc in the post

.243 wrote: »

heres another way of looking at it on fee's,
at the moment the DHL is free and we all know how much it can be a hassle to get a licence out on time and has been like this for a long time,
maybe npws are just happy to go along as is and issue them as theyve always done,because if a fee is introduced you are then paying for a service which brings you into line with any business/service that can be held accountable,can you imagine the first year this happens when guys dont get there licence for the 1st of sept(or any other licence they issue) the consumer affairs dept phones will be hopping from lads "ive paid my money where is my licence",because youd be on the phone as quick from paying your motor tax online and not recieve your disc in the post

That is not how it will work with a gov dept. Take a look and your firearms licence for example, district 1 can turn around a licence in a fortnight, district 2 can take 3 month, district 1 again later in the year can take 3 month. No rhyme or reason to it, it can take court cases , solicitors letters etc to make them do what they are meant to.



Sadly a fee will make no impact on whether you receive a better service from the WLU, they will be no more held accountable than they already are.If you think it will you have not dealt with gov bodies enough to have the experience to know better. I mean that not as an insult but as the sad truth.

Hypothecation is not a feature of the Irish tax system except for a very small few exemptions. A fee/tax on a DHL will neither improve , expedite or make the WLU more accountable for the issuing of DHLs.

hiddenmongoose wrote: »

Thats the exact mentality the EU anti gun crowd want, they cant ban guns, so lets make all gun related issues so annoying, complicated and expensive that people just give up themselves

I know you are right, but it comes to a point where you have to ask yourself if the fun you get out of something is greater than the effort you are putting in to do it.

We are better off as in what we can own now compared to the 70's, 80's into the 90's, pistols, semi-auto centrefires etc, but in every other respect things have become more onerous.

The eu being anti gun is typical of a lot of the pinko's/greens involved with it, but then you have the crowd who hope terrorism will miraculously disappear if they ban Mick Murphy down the road having a 25 round mag for his 10/22. As we seen yesterday in Paris, it doesn't.

No matter how you dress it up , the fee is still putting lipstick on a pig. It will eventually mission creep into dealing with the foreshore licenses as well,as that is a bifgger catchment than the deer stalkers, and unless they are paying into it as well. We deer hunters will be funding this 144 thousand PA. So as far as I go this is a non-starting or negotiable point unless the foreshore licenses are pulled in to this as well.END OF.

The courses as they stand are more than adquate for Ireland,maybe add the butchering course onto them?.But after that anything else is padding,and any other course add on should be optional not cumpulsory, or be viewed like boy scout merit badges to do things legally any stalker should be able to do . Nor should there be any "refresher" cumpulsion as these are nothing but money spinners. We dont ask people to resit their driver tests every time they renew their liscenses,and God knows there are a good few that could do with that out there .So why should we be singled out for this? If you have been out at least 8 seasons, or have an eU or UK hunting liscense and havent killed anyone or made a ballsup of things,what will a course teach you further?You a bad shot?Go practise,or get your gun checked out.This is just another catchment to scoop more cash otherwise from the old hands.

Permissions.Still think it needs to be refined better from a landowners perspective.There is a reason that grazing rights are a 11month contract on land. Put in a clause that these permissions are only seasonal valid,not a year validity .IE you only have permission to enter the land for the shooting seasons unless otherwise agreed.That way the continuity of access by a 3rd party is broken.

3 year liscense Check, doing this online check,dispensing with rifle and ammo info, check, bag returns,[a complete joke as well] but if doable online check.

hiddenmongoose wrote: »

Why when you can get it for free?


The more people say they are willing to pay for something that is free the more likely it is you will have to pay for it. We already have that idiot claiming to be speaking on behalf of stalkers saying it should be 80 quid, and here you are happy to pay 100,Whats stopping someone saying '' sure why not make it 1000 euro or 2000 for that matter'', that would do away with alot of hunters and leave more deer to me, or my ''deer culling/control business.



Once a fee is introduced what stops it going up in price.



Why be happy to pay a fee when you know that fee does not go back into anything to directly benefit you as a hunter/conservationist.



Any fee like any other tax in Ireland goes into the ''pot'' and that is then used as is seen fit , an example is your road tax, that does not go towards roads it goes into the pot.



Paying a fee for a licence will in no way improve the system or benifit the hunter. If the WLU are going to change to a better online system (which is already stated by the minister as being looked at ) then they will do just that and in fact Save money yearly from reduced man hours involved. A fee will not change or influence whether or not a new system is set up or how it functions.

You're reading a lot in to my post.

I am happy to pay for a service that would see me with a guaranteed license arriving in my door step without fail before September 1st each year.

I pay a lot of money to hunt, with fuel, ammo, insurance and Coillte fees.

My rifle, scope and binos cost many thousands.

I hate waiting on tenter hooks each year mlfor my license. If I had the option yo pay for one, I eould be happy to.

You should calm down, the Shooting Forum is not After Hours.
Its not like the Minister is acting on my direction!

Pkiernan wrote: »

You should calm down, the Shooting Forum is not After Hours.
Its not like the Minister is acting on my direction!

No but the point is people on various social media outlets are already talking of paying a fee for a licence. As has been explained by me and others here no fee no matter how big or small will influence you getting your licence on time so why even begin to mention paying it. And yes I highly doubt the minister is reading your posts but the fact that people claiming to represent us saying a fee is acceptable followed by people agreeing that they would pay a fee..(need I say again that this fee will in no way benifit us) simply makes it easy for a gov body to introduce a fee. That is why we need push against anyone mentioning paying a fee or saying they would be happy to pay one.



We all invest time and money in our sport, I certainly do, probably more than most here if truth were known and have no issue spending money on it.However the issue is spending money regardless of the amount for zero return, especially when it could result in a fee that can be increased at anytime.



The monetary value is not the issue, the point is a fee with no benifit, and also to be honest the wider issue is people with no interest apart from power grabs/control and making money off the back of sportsmen.

tudderone wrote: »

I wonder how much of this is seeking to weed out the riff-raff and make deer stalking an exclusive sport for the better off ? When i started there were no courses and tests, no charge for a hunting licence, deer shooting could be had for the asking, no one was asking for fees to shoot over their ground.

I know of one well off south Dublin individual, who joins game clubs around Wicklow, sees the working of them how good the shooting is and then goes to the landowner and seeks to buy the exclusive shooting rights behind the clubs back. He does the same with deer stalking.

As I eluded to in an earlier post , when people are saying they would pay 100 euro for the licence why not make 1000 or 2000. Nothing to stop the fee gong up or to possibly even make it a tender process to get a licence and that is why we should push against the fee (besides the point that none of the fee will go towards making the WLU more effevtive etc)


This would suit certain people very well, alot less people with licences but still a need for deer to be culled, more money in certain individuals pockets.



As for the certain Individual you mention above I also know of the same story happening in other locations.


Peopke need to be carefull what they wish for, and what they say they are happy to embrace and support. Short shortsightedness and a naive lack of understanding of how things work.


Ask why is a certain individual claiming to represent a mass of stalkers and what they have to benefit from it...then when you have that answer look again at why they are proposing a fee for a licence.

Its not tinfoil hat or paranoia, its simply seeing how things work and why certain people have a vested interest in things. And why others should be more careful in what they are quick to support (albeit for misguided reasons)

Why is there a licence needed to hunt deer at all ? There is none for the vast majority of wild game. What makes deer so special ?

Pkiernan wrote: »

God forbid you have a different opinion.

Whats wrong with wanting to pay for a service, as long as it is efficient?

I hate the uncertainty of the current system, and would gladly pay for a system that guaranteed a license on time.

Please read the above 2 sentences 2 or 3 times so you can understand it. Its a stament of what I would be willing to pay for.


Its not elitism.

I'd like to see a modest licence fee, with all fees ring fenced for the NPWS to combat poachers and fly tippers.
Or is that too controversial for some of our resident cheapskates?

1 box of Sako hammerheads is €45, the 10 gallons of diesel I burn on a huntimg trips is more again. I'm not too cheap to be willing preserve my sport.

I would describe your wishes as unrealistic more than controversial, but that's just my personal opinion.

garrettod wrote: »

Just wondering, is it possible that there's a bit of a misunderstanding here?

My post above where I was suggesting paying a small fee every 3 years, was exclusively a payment to the Dept, in return for them investing in technology, providing a better service, guaranteeing a reasonable turnaround time etc.

I personally don't see any investment forthcoming otherwise, while the county is neck deep in debt, having to continue to borrow to find wage subsidies to those who are unable to work due to Covid - 19, and am underlying economic recession? I actually think that there's more risk of the Dept seeing cuts in its budget over the next few years, which could further hamper the prospects for our current arrangements improving.

Again the reason I do not agree with you is for the reason that your fee will never go towards the system in the NPWS, its not how it works , understand our taxation system and the reasons why we dont ringfence fees/tax revenue in 99% of the cases and why an unreliable revenue source like this particular case would not be considered for ringfencing.





My final point on this is if people keep saying they are willing to pay a fee (albeit i understand you mean you wish it to go to the NPWS directly) then you will get exactly that..a fee...but it wont go to the NPWS.

Were we anywhere else but Ireland,I would be for a liscense fee.As it would go back into the sport.But the utter reality of living in Ireland is that here it will not go anywhere near it,or will be misspent on a wage rise to keep people behind a desk and not out in the field.So it is a pointless exercise to even entertain the idea by paying for this that things will improve.
In fact I would consider this a bad joke as we are rewarding incompetence and inefficiency by agreeing to even thinking about these people getting money.
If we have had a dramatic increase in deer liscenses since 2006 14 years ago,why wasnt this dept naturally modernised to handle this increase in this time period ,but still relies on 70s methodology and until Covid was happy to creak along doing such?

tudderone wrote: »

I wonder how much of this is seeking to weed out the riff-raff and make deer stalking an exclusive sport for the better off ? When i started there were no courses and tests, no charge for a hunting licence, deer shooting could be had for the asking, no one was asking for fees to shoot over their ground.

I know of one well off south Dublin individual, who joins game clubs around Wicklow, sees the working of them how good the shooting is and then goes to the landowner and seeks to buy the exclusive shooting rights behind the clubs back. He does the same with deer stalking.

Going from 400+/- to 5000 plus numbers would be kind of an answer there to the 1st part.This only started in 03 because of an insurance requirement on Coilte woods and an individuals idea to make a quick buck once their mission was done in Coilte .

As for that individual,has no one thought of black balling him from those clubs?

Yes we don't pay for deer hunting licences, why should we?, infact why shouldn't we.

Let's see, the applicant at present is sent a printed application form via the post service (there is an option to download a form from a website at your own expense. The form is processed by an employee in the office and if needs be a secound employee is involved to verify the validity of the application with a site visit before the license is printed off and posted to you.

So the proposal of, what is it €85.00, every three years or more precisely €28.33 per year seems steep.

Well let me put it this way, and I know the neigh-sayers will dismiss this out of hand, an online application for a hunting licence in France is done automatically and you print off your own licence at the end of it for the princely sum of €82.99. So basically you are only paying for the up keep of the website, no public sector workers in the office, no wildlife rangers driving up to the permission/s and no over heads for your very own application.


Hay, I don't particularly want to pay out more money, but I'm still surprised that we are not paying some sort of admin charge.
FYI-

The price of €82.99 is for a nine day permit in only one region of the country. Residents pay through the same system a yearly cost for a departmental license flof around €150 while a national permit is €447. This was promised to be reduce by 50%, as yet I'm not sure as to the out come.