MLAs look set to back controversial hunting bill - as Sinn Fein and Ulster Unionists offer qualified support

However, the parties want clearer protections for hunting for food and allowing farmers to protect livestock.

A vote is scheduled to take place later this afternoon, but the bill looks set to pass with Sinn Fein, Alliance, UUP and SDLP support.

DUP MLAs have a free vote on the issue, with a majority likely to oppose it.

Sinn Fein’s Áine Murphy said the party supports “the principle of a targeted ban on fox hunting with dogs for the purposes of leisure as part of a broader approach to regulating hunting”. She said her party supported the bill’s intention “to tackle unnecessary cruelty to animals”.

However, the Fermanagh MLA said the exemptions currently included within the bill are not yet sufficient.

“We also have concerns regarding the bill's treatment of activities involving animal-based scents that do not involve the hunting of mammals, such as trail hunting. We should be exploring how alternatives to traditional hunting can be supported, such as trail hunting and drag hunting” she said.

The SF MLA said exemptions relating to hunting for food or managing species populations “must be robust and practical”.

Robbie Butler said the Ulster Unionist Party is “broadly supportive of the principles underpinning the hunting with dogs bill”.

He said it was not a position grounded in “hostility” towards rural life, farming, shooting or legitimate countryside management, “as some may try to frame this”. Instead, he said, it came from “a belief that animal welfare legislation should reflect the highest ethical standards expected in a modern society”.

Mr Butler, who will lead scrutiny of the bill at the next stage, said his party wants “clarity on the safeguards that will exist to ensure that ordinary dog owners, rough shooters, gamekeepers, and those engaged in lawful countryside pursuits are not inadvertently criminalised”.

DUP MLA Tom Buchanan, who sits on the agriculture committee, said the plan was “legislatively weak… practically unworkable, and… fundamentally damaging to the rural people of Northern Ireland”.

“This house has a duty to pass laws that are clear, that are proportionate, that are enforceable and grounded in evidence, and this bill before the House today fails to meet each one of these tests”, he said.

However, the MLA behind the legislation, Alliance’s John Blair, said blood sports have no place in a modern democratic society – and concerns about the impact of a ban on hunting with dogs are based on scaremongering.

He said the legislation does not take an “absolutist approach” – and there is “no impact” on shooting with dogs.