Martin Heydon (Kildare South, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the gentlemen for their presentation. Mr. Kavanagh addressed my thoughts when he stressed the importance of the horse racing and breeding sector coming back under the remit of the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine and clearly differentiated between sport and the Department of Transport, Tourism and Sport. There is a good reason racing and breeding are under the Department of Agriculture, Marine and Food, which is that it is a key agricultural activity in parts of rural Ireland. Sport has connotations of recreation. I partake in sport and follow sport, generally at the weekends and in my spare time. I am also involved in agriculture and that is a job. It pays the bills and does a lot of things for a lot of people. We need to take a step back and ask why we are giving €60 million to the horse and greyhound fund for this year. We are not doing it because we like to go racing and to back dogs or horses but because it is an industry that is worth more than €1 billion to our economy and employs 16,000 on the equine end and 10,000 on the greyhound end. It is real economic activity and provides real jobs in parts of rural Ireland where there is very little alternative. It needs to be protected.

I was at a breakfast not long ago when the Minister for Finance made the point that he was not a big racing man and did not understand the industry very well but based on the figures, he gets why we need to invest in the industry. It is far better for the racing and greyhound industry that the Minister for Finance provides funding because it is the right thing to do financially rather than have a Minister who supports the industry because he is into the sport.

Perhaps concerns over welfare and disease control can be circumvented and Professor Wall might talk about the risks of cross-contamination. A few years ago this committee had a lengthy discussion about raw milk and producers of raw milk who appeared before us were very aggrieved that they could not sell their raw milk at markets any more. It was made very clear to us that the dairy industry was worth €3 billion to our economy. Somebody could continue to sell raw, unpasteurised milk and everything might be okay but the risk was that if one person got ill from drinking raw milk, the whole Irish milk brand would be tarnished. We could not justify the risk of reputational damage to the overall industry and there is an analogy here. Deputy Ó Cuív said it was like telling hurling players and football players they had to play on different pitches but I do not agree with him. There are dual players and the same people play hurling and football. Sports horses and thoroughbreds are very different animals. It is great to see harness racing develop and I would be very supportive of it but I would hate undue pressure to be put on the thoroughbred sector to open up the gates and leave genuine concerns aside for populist reasons. I look forward to the report which is being worked on at present and to see what the best way forward is for the harness industry. However, the concerns being raised are genuine.