Mr. Brendan Gleeson:

Horse Sport Ireland is a very atypical body. It is a company limited by guarantee and a kind of a public-private partnership, if one likes. It is the national body for sport horses but it is not a State body in the usual way. It does have some of the characteristics of a State body. The Deputy is right about that controversy. The facility did not go ahead. At the time, we wrote to the chairman and asked him to ensure that whatever he was doing was consistent with public procurement guidelines. There was a doubt about that because leasing property is generally not covered by public procurement. There was a little bit of uncertainty about that but it did not go ahead anyway.

Some of the funding we give Horse Sport Ireland is for administration and some of it is for breeding programmes. I understood at the time that our funding was not going into that proposal. It was not part of it. Horse Sport Ireland also gets funding from the Department of Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media for its sporting activities. We fund the breeding elements - the development of breed - and the Department of Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media funds what used to be the Equestrian Federation of Ireland, that part of it. There is a new board in there, so the Deputy will be aware there was also a controversy about the resignation of the board. The Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine has powers now, under an agreement with Horse Sport Ireland, to appoint a chairman and up to four members. We have done that and we selected people with deep experience, particularly governance experience. They are in there now.

This is something we have to reflect on because I think it is a very good idea to have these partnerships with the sector. Horse Sport Ireland is an important body for the support of the sector, but there are issues we will have to consider in the context of governance because of how atypical it is.