Michael Creed (Cork North West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Deputy Healy-Rae raised the issue of the fair deal scheme. My colleague, the Minister of State at the Department of Health, Deputy Jim Daly, has been engaged on this issue for some time. A proposal went to Government recently and was approved and I expect that there will be substantial progress on that issue in 2019.

On the issue of hen harriers, Deputies Danny Healy-Rae, Martin Kenny and Cahill, who all raised this matter previously, will be aware that there is a €25 million locally-led scheme and payments will go to those farmers who have been approved under the scheme this month. I have always said that the cumulative effect of the hen harrier scheme and the threat response plan, which involves restricted access to afforestation as an option on that land, will deliver for those farmers. Payments under the hen harrier scheme will commence this month.

Senator Mulherin raised the issue of the sport horse industry and we all celebrate the recent successes of the Irish sport horse sector on the international stage. The industry achieves quite spectacularly and has enormous potential. The Indecon report on the sector was published some time ago. The Government was of the view that the governance issues identified in that report needed to be addressed. The plan was that once those issues were addressed, funding would follow. A new, slimmed down board was recently appointed and a new chief executive is in place and is working well. Improvements can be seen now and, in the context of the budgetary debate that is ongoing, we will remain focused on what we can do in that sector. There is potential but there are infrastructure deficits in the sector. I met some people from the sport horse industry informally last Friday in Kilkenny. They were hugely enthusiastic in terms of their ambition. Rome was not built in a day and the industry has an extensive shopping list. It has also conducted considerable research and produced several reports. I would like to see the trajectory continuing in the right direction in respect of funding and while it will never be enough, we remain supportive of the sector as it tries to achieve its ambitions.

On rare breeds, I am not aware of the details of Senator Mulherin's concerns but we did marginally increase the funding available. If she could provide more detail-----