Presumably concern for the environment is not something that bothers Jerry Vlasak, the extremist animal rights advocate from the US. He flew 10,000 miles to speak for 10 minutes in a debate on animal research in Dublin last week.

What was remarkable was the man’s ability to make such a bad impression in such a short space of time. Not only was he the only speaker who refused to take questions, much to the frustration of those present, but he managed to spectacularly misjudge the mood of the audience.

Vlasak, who has advocated violence against researchers who use animals, spent most of his speech likening his movement to the French resistance during the Second World War. Such rhetoric seemed absurd in what was an otherwise genuine debate about a difficult ethical issue. Vlasak clearly lives on a different planet to the rest of us.

It was difficult to take seriously Vlasak’s bizarre vision compared to the reality of well-regulated and carefully conducted humane animal research. It conjured up extraordinary visions of commonly used animals in research, such as fruit flies and fish, being overrun by Nazi stormtroopers!

No wonder the other proposed speakers from the UK backed out at short notice. Sharing a platform with a man locked in a mental mind trap from the last century would surely have been an embarrassment.

At the end of the evening, much like a similar debate at Cork University the month before, the vote was overwhelmingly in favour of animal research. Indeed, it was difficult to find anyone hanging around afterwards at the students bar who thought that animal rights was issue at all in Ireland!