Mr. Pat Creed:

This board started in December 2015. We had our first meeting in Horse and Jockey in December 2015. We met early in January and we went through the challenges facing the board. We had the High Court cases that had to be resolved. We had the defined benefit pension scheme. We had massive bank debts that needed to be sorted. We had some issues around needing a laboratory machine.

In early 2016, we went to Limerick and met every constituent of the greyhound industry for the entire day. The trainers and owners and so on came in. We met them all for the whole day. It was one full day. I am keen to refute the fact that we are not talking to people. We had three consultative forums during 2016. The last was attended by the Minister of State at the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine, Deputy Andrew Doyle. We have met the industry on a consultative basis right through 2016.