Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

This has been a core concern of those involved in point-to-point racing and it is important that we try to nail it. All that is changing here is that when one registers a hunter for point-to-point racing, one sends the cheque to the administrative office. We are now asking it to do all the administration from an efficiency point of view. Everything else stays as it is in terms of local hunt clubs going out and visiting, ensuring that everything is done appropriately, etc., and giving the certification that goes with that.

My understanding of what we are doing is that when one registers the horse as a hunter, instead of sending one's cheque to the Turf Club, one sends it to this single administrative office. This is really about efficiency, because the money automatically goes back to the Turf Club as it would have. This is almost like an outsourcing to a new administrative office so that we have a single office for registration across racing for all horses. That was a strong recommendation from Smith and Williamson and it merely makes sensible efficiencies.

The initial discussion was whether HRI should be involved in a more active way in the scheduling of point-to-point racing, but we scrapped all of that because of arguments that Deputies Martin Heydon, Martin Ferris and Willie Penrose were making that racegoers think that point-to-point racing works. The Deputies did not want to change that structure. Such racing is run by local hunt clubs which are made up of members who are strong and passionate about what they do. As a result, we are not changing any of that and we are simply now focusing on the administrative processing and achieving greater efficiency in that system. That is the intent.

If, as a barrister, Deputy Penrose is saying that the wording we propose is not consistent with that, I want to hear about it and we will get advice from the Parliamentary Counsel to reflect it. However, I want to be clear about my intention here. We want to support strongly the current structures for point-to-point racing because they work but we also want to ensure that the changes we are making right across the Bill are about sensible management, efficiencies and administration. The only relevance to the point-to-point racing sector contained in the Bill is the registration of hunters in terms of getting the hunter certificates.