Éamon Ó Cuív (Galway West, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

Gabhaim buíochas leis na finnéithe as ucht an cur i láthair inniu. The Indecon report makes horrendous reading. The industry got €103.4 million to invest, yet it has still managed to find itself in a dire financial position. No doubt the downturn in the economy will be cited for that, but many businesses that should have been more directly affected by the downturn have survived much better than Bord na gCon. A comparison of figures in terms of the number of people involved in the greyhound industry in 2006 and the number currently involved in it shows there has been a total failure.

The turnover from racing facilities has dropped from €63.4 million to €28 million. I would interested to have sight of the figures for the period prior to the height of Celtic tiger years but we have not been given those. Did the turnover suddenly increase in the period from 2002 to 2006 from €28 million to €63 million? That is the measure of how much the tiger economy impacted on the revenue accruing. I suspect that did not happen. There was a massive operating loss in 2013 of €9.6 million on a turnover of €28 million. That is disastrous in business terms. I understand the preliminary results for this year show that despite the upturn in the economy and revenue, the tax take and economic activity having increased, as the Government would advise us, attendance levels are down. The number of active owners has dropped dramatically from 14,000. I doubt if they all suddenly jumped out, as it were, in 2007. Therefore, it is not as if the Celtic tiger economy accounts for all this. The number has decreased from 14,000 to 8,000, which is almost halved.

What we have got from all this investment on behalf of the taxpayers is a massive debt. I am not an expert on greyhounds as I am not involved in the industry. I could count on two hands the number of greyhound races I have attended, and those I attended were mainly charity events. From reading the reports, having listened to what has been going on and reading between the lines of what the new chief executive had to say, it seems the regulatory regime and the integrity services have been deficient. I have heard many stories about what was going on in terms of tests and various things that were happening and matters not being pursued. Various allegations have been made and I would not like to repeat some of them, even under the protection of the privilege of the House. The Indecon report indicates failure of the regulatory regime and of all the integrity services. In fairness to the new chief executive, she pointed out in her statement that this must all change, that it has been deficient and that one of the reasons this industry has declined so dramatically is that people lost faith in it. That is very sad because, as pointed out by many people, greyhound racing is the poor person's horse racing. It has a low capital investment compared with getting involved in thoroughbred racehorses. It is something people like to do, but no one wants to be involved in an industry that cannot say it has the highest standards.

There are many questions to be answered and I am not happy. Someone new will be left with a legacy and while I do not have problem with this, I am not happy because we have not been given an explanation as to why Indecon had to come in, and taking into account that these reports must always be careful in what they state, this report appears to be quite blunt about deficiencies. The chief executive spoke today about significant reforms to the regulatory framework of the IGB from an operational and legislative perspective. If it was working fine, why would it need reform? He spoke about the introduction of new enhanced control measures in all regulatory processes and procedures, in particular monitoring the use and misuse of substances in greyhound racing. We are speaking about a litany of failures to deal with the issue. How many of the six people on the board, including the chairman, were on the board during this period? Does the chairman not think, in view of the indictment in the Indecon report and what the chief executive has had to say to us, that the honourable thing would have been for the board members to state they had served their time and that it was time for a full new brush with a clean sweep of everything in order that others could pick up? Unfortunately, the term of office of those members in place during the period has led to the devastating report we have in front of us.