Dr. David McGrath:

There have been three and they have been reasonably effective in terms of communication. The agenda has been driven by the board for the first couple of fora. No agenda was issued prior to any of the fora, rather it was laid out on the day. I think we did have an agenda for the third forum. The attendance of the Minister of State, Deputy Andrew Doyle, at the last forum gave the the Irish Greyhound Owners and Breeders Federation, IGOBF, Greyhound Racing Integrity Ireland, GRII, and other stakeholders a chance to communicate directly with the Minister, which was very helpful to us and, I think, the Minister of State.

He stayed for two and a half hours at that forum. I am not saying the forum is hopeless but much more face-to-face contact is needed for getting business done or going into any kind of detail, such as we are able to do here with the committee. Ms Forde was instrumental in driving Professor Morris to issue the Morris report. We were very involved in that report. We were interviewed for four hours in Limerick and had a lot of input into his evidence prior to him writing the report. About 15 months ago, we were here at the launch of the committee's report on the horse and greyhound industries. It was very disheartening for us that the Morris report was never actually published, although it was referenced in the committee's report. At the launch, we asked the Minister of State, Deputy Andrew Doyle if the committee had actually seen the Morris report. It had never been shown to the committee even though it was referenced in its report. To his credit, Deputy Doyle gave an undertaking that he would put the Morris report into the Houses of the Oireachtas Library. A few weeks later he was given ministerial responsibility for greyhounds and he went ahead and published the Morris report. It was very helpful for all those who are involved in the welfare and integrity of greyhounds. The Morris report is an extremely detailed, excellent piece of work.