Kevin O'Keeffe (Cork East, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

Like my colleagues, I acknowledge that the greyhound industry is damaged. Perhaps supporters should be let out of their traps soon, for damage limitation purposes.

No one condones what was shown on the television, but there was a touch of "Reeling in the Years" to many of the clips. I came into the Dáil in 2016 and the greyhound industry has been under attack from day one. I have been supportive of it and I hope to still support it. There was a lackadaisical approach to the industry, and the legislation was not strong enough, but in fairness to the Minister, the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine, and the Minister of State, Deputy Doyle, they sat down with our party colleagues and Deputy Cahill in particular, and thrashed out new legislation which I hope will alleviate the issues we saw and ensure they cannot be repeated or allowed occur again, once it is properly up and running.

We acknowledge that there are people in every sector, industry, or sport who give it a bad name, and they have to be culled. Trainers drugging dogs and being allowed off the hook were mentioned, and that must be stopped. Regarding animal welfare, the last time I saw something like one of the clips from the RTÉ programme was nearly 50 years ago when, as a child, I saw my grandfather getting a pig ready to be cut up in the backyard at home. What I saw the other night was in no way as bad as that, but it goes to show the horrors that happen abroad. How do we stop that? Perhaps some of my left-wing colleagues should talk to the authorities in those countries and tell them to get their houses in order regarding how they treat dogs that are no longer fit to race.

Much was made of the point that we have committed to giving over €16 million of taxpayers' money to the IGB annually, which I hope continues. However, I ask Mr. Nyhan to explain what we return we are getting from that investment. Is that €16 million going into a bottomless pit, or is something being generated from it, either directly or indirectly? Coming from a rural background, I can see the benefits of the greyhound industry in my own area in north Cork, as well as in east Cork where the Youghal Greyhound Track is being kept open. It is of benefit to local organisations and communities, which go to greyhound tracks and make tremendous amounts of money in fundraising. Those people would not go to the racing if they thought the dogs would end up like this, so we need to nip this in the bud.

I ask Mr. Nyhan to address the legislation that was brought in recently, the Greyhound Racing Act 2019. Does it need to be copper-fastened or amended again, in order to ensure the contents of the clips we were shown cannot be repeated?

I have some concerns regarding the disposal of greyhounds. I understand that there is an issue around category 1 disposals, as not all knackeries have that licence, and putting more of them in place would create further complications in the disposal of animals who have been put to sleep because the veterinary costs are astronomical. I hope we can move on from this debacle. Can Mr. Nyhan tell us whether the legislation we put in place has to be tightened up more, in order to ensure we do not have further repeats of what happened five or six years ago?