Willie Penrose (Longford-Westmeath, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I lost enough. In any event, we have to know how many if we are giving money to the industry. I am not averse to helping out industries, because I know how important they are in rural areas. They are a recreational outlet and have an income generation capacity for those people, but we have to know how many people are actually in the industry. We cannot just say what we think it employs. That will not get us anywhere because value for money is important.

That turns me back to the Indecon report on the horse racing industry and HRI. I am looking forward to it preparing its value for money audit which it promised us. That should be top of its agenda and board meetings. I anticipate that it is. If it is not, the organisation should question that because it has been demanded by the Minister through his officials and through us in a very concerted and unanimous way, so it should be forthcoming. I hope that lessons have been learned in terms of governance. One would only have to be a first year law student, not somebody with almost three decades at the law, to realise why the appointment of the chief executive went the way it did. I understood that very well. One could not recoil from that, unless one wanted a big legal action. I understand it. The real issue is that one cannot unscramble the egg and go back and cry over the spilled milk. What we have to do now is make sure that lessons have been learned with regard to all of those semi-State and State organisations. That is the issue I want to see addressed. I will not re-run that horse because it is long gone past the post. As Deputy Kenny, I spent hours on the new Act.

I am not convinced that people like the stable hands are getting a fair cut. It is clear when one sees what happened at a recent meeting. I argue they should have been included on sub-boards. They are the people we see leading around horses. They could leave a place at 6 o'clock in the morning to get to somewhere else and they are there all day. They are great workers and a great face for the industry. I salute them. It is important we ensure they get properly remunerated.

If it is felt they are not getting a fair cut, I will not be averse to tabling amendments, seeking the support of my colleagues to ensure that everything works out in that regard.

Value for money will be important. I do not think anything will pass on a nod. I understand that we are allocating €80 million, which is a great deal of money and people will want to see benefits from it. I do not want HRI to set off on a run. HRI always picks the easy targets when it is looking for money. How could one justify targeting the owners who had paid for their colours, seeking to charge them on 1 January of the following year to renew the colours? If an owner had a trainer acting as an agent in the first year, in the following year, year two, the owner had to pay more money so that the agent would continue acting for him or her. Once HRI got one cut of money from the owners, it should move on and leave those who paid alone. HRI always targeted the easy pickings rather than going to big wheels. Unfortunately, the increases in the cost of training and everything else cumulatively led to people leaving the syndicates. I was one of them myself. One had to clear out because one formed the impression that one was at the end of the food chain and did not matter. That is why I used to kick up a bit of a row because I was representing a great many people like myself who were foolish enough to get involved in syndicates, but without the like of us, the syndicate does not have the members. The syndicates only have the big knives who arrive in and swallow it up.

I am delighted with the developments in the Curragh, but one needs developments in Kilbeggan, Roscommon, Ballinrobe, Thurles and Clonmel. I go down to Clonmel. The money has to be spent in the real places. It is great to have flagship projects and to bring in all the boys and the great people - the multimillionaires and perhaps billionaires. I want to ensure that a few bob goes to the fellow with a family who is surviving on €300 to €400 a week, who is trying to breed the odd horse and get a winner out of it. If I think the money is going to that segment of the industry, I have no problem supporting any of the Estimate in that regard.