Ray Butler (Meath West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister of State and his officials for their presence. The challenge for Bord na gCon is to encourage the development of a commercial racing and breeding greyhound industry. I have always said that we have underinvested in getting the message out that the facilities at some greyhound tracks are as good as four or five star hotels. We need to advertise the fine facilities at the greyhound stadiums. We have not put in sufficient resources to market the facilities to people in the community to organisations that could host events in the stadium or even to consider running events to fund local clubs or charities. I am on record that we should have at least two people in each province going out and selling the facilities of the greyhound industry to charities that can host events at the tracks. I would like to see a charity event every Saturday night at my local track in Mullingar, because this would bring in significant turnover. There is no reason that we cannot go out and sell it.

In regard to the shortfall of €21 million and the proposal to dispose of Harold's Cross, as a breeder who has been racing greyhounds all my life, I would not be in favour of selling Harold's Cross, but unfortunately this is looking like the option. Could we consider the alternative of the online betting levy as a means of paying off the debt? Everybody has mobile telephones and online betting is huge with the yield from the levy rising. At present there is a 1% levy on online betting and would we consider servicing the debt from that source?

I welcome the additional €1.2 million being provided this year. I am delighted to see that it is being put into prize money. The drop in the number of breeders and owners was due to the size of the prize money. The inputs are expensive with certificates, passports and microchips. I would like to see the reintroduction of the breeding scheme that was in place ten years ago, where the owner of the bitch who ran in ten races was given £150 and if she ran a further ten races, the owner received another £150. If that bitch who ran in the races produced a litter of pups, the breeder got £300 once the litter hit the ground, which created successful breeding. We should look at that again.

A digital strategy is one of the recommendations of the report. We should look at what they do in Australia where greyhound racing is doing very well. We see the significant prize money. I acknowledge that they are eight dog races. However with the introduction of their digital system, one can watch a greyhound race in every pub, club or on the telephone. We have to examine that option if we want the sport to move on. We can do that

I welcome the trial Bookmakers Afternoon Greyhound Service, BAGS, races in the three tracks in the past two or three months. They have been a great success in one or two tracks, which will bring in extra revenue. We should be looking at the BAGS meetings as a way of raising revenue.

Dog doping is an issue. An that needs to be looked at in greater depth is the qualifying trials that allows dogs to race. We should be testing dogs that are getting ready to qualify to race, as this is where doping occurs. We should have a team of testers when there are qualifying trials on the tracks.

We should get people to look at that.

As has been said, there are 10,500 people employed by the greyhound industry. Some €44 million was put into Irish horse racing last year. The taxpayers put in a lot of money but they also get a lot of value through the revenue that is returned. Greyhound racing is huge in rural areas. Even in County Meath, every second person has a greyhound. I welcome the work the Minister of State has done over the past years and hope he keeps it up.