Mr. Joe Boland:

On the research issue, I am aware that Senator Conway-Walsh is very strong on this issue and I agree wholeheartedly with her. The local authority sector has been looking for this for quite some time. It will be gleaned from the conversation today that there are significant costs involved. All of these are reactive. We are reacting to a problem and are never sufficiently focused on the cause of the problem in the first instance. What is the cause? Is it solely down to cultural issues or are there other factors involved? Does this relate to a culture of carelessness or indiscriminate breeding? Does it relate to issues of supply to the food chain, as suggested by Deputy Cahill? Are there issues relating to adverse possession of lands? Are there other issues or ones of criminality involved? Are horses being kept simply as an attack on authority? There are many aspects to this. The local authority sector would welcome independent academic research on this and again I agree wholeheartedly with many of the comments made here. I commend the work of this committee and this is one action that it should consider very carefully.

As far as local authorities are concerned we would be happy to contribute to the costs, but as several members of the committee have said, we do not want to be back here in ten years time talking about this again. The problem would appear to have abated somewhat but is certainly not gone away by any by any manner or means.