Mr. Pat Herbert:

Deputy Cahill asked about sampling figures. In the UK, 50,000 races were held. There is an extensive bookmakers afternoon greyhound service, BAGS, racing network set up there too. The rate of testing is 8,000 samples, which is roughly one in six. In Ireland last year, there were just over 16,000 races with 5,000 samples taken, which is a one-in-three rate. We have a much higher hit ratio. Regarding improvements at track level to ensure issues that arose in the past have not happened again. We have requested tenders to look at the issue of the supply of CCTV footage at all stadia. We have introduced regulation in the past couple of months on kennel hand authorisations so that only licensed people have access to greyhounds at our kennels.

The person is either an owner, trainer, agent or authorised kennel hand of our approval. There have been significant improvements made in those areas, notwithstanding those that will be introduced by way of this Bill. I will ask my colleague, Dr. Gaynor, to respond to the question on EU countries.