Jackie Cahill (Tipperary, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

The integrity of the industry has come under fire, unjustly I believe. For me, this is the most important part of the Bill for the reputation of the industry. I accept it is technical but surely a threshold can be inserted, such as finding minute substances that would not affect the performance of a dog. In all tests for residues there is a tolerance level allowed as it does not have any impact on the safety of a product, whether it is a food or otherwise. Surely the same thing can be worked into this, whereby some minute tolerance is inserted so that a minute trace of a substance is not going to disqualify a dog as it cannot affect his performance. That is lacking at present. One could say that if a dog drank a sup of tea before a race and was tested, he could fail the test. That is not what we want from this Bill.