Joe Costello (Dublin Central, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I thank Deputy Fleming for allowing me to speak ahead of him. My question relates to Bord na gCon and the Indecon report and what seems to be a decision by the Department to close down Harold's Cross race track which is a profitable race track, one of the few profitable race tracks out of the total of 17 in the country. The implementation of the Indecon report seems to be very selective. Why should the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine want to close down one of the two race tracks in Dublin, considering other counties with far smaller populations have two race tracks, such as Cork and Tipperary? Why close down a profit-making race track which had a 22% increase in profitability in the first quarter of 2015? How does the Department expect the smaller loss-making race tracks will be funded considering that the surplus profit from the three profitable race tracks was ploughed into the loss-making tracks? Why is there this requirement that Limerick race track must be saved at all costs? Why was there such an extravagant expenditure there in the first place? Why should Harold's Cross be going for the high jump because of wrong decisions in respect of other areas?