Mr. Brian Kavanagh:

It is a really worrying development for us. As I said earlier, we export 60% of the horses we produce every year. While those exports go to 33 countries, by far the largest market is the UK. The industries in the two countries are practically interlinked. If we look at racing in the UK today, almost half the horses running will be Irish horses and almost half the jockeys riding will be Irish jockeys who are based in the UK. If betting shops were open at the moment, anybody who went into one would see Irish and UK racing beside each other. They buy the pictures of Irish racing and we buy the pictures of UK racing.

Before Brexit, we had free and completely unhindered movement of horses between Britain, Ireland and France under a tripartite agreement. That is now gone and Britain has become a third country. Therefore, the movement of horses between the countries becomes a VAT and customs event. Under EU animal health law, there are new phytosanitary requirements in terms of veterinary certification and details that need to be checked before a horse can move from a third country into the EU. We are endeavouring to smooth that passage as much as possible because there are 25,000 horse movements a year between Ireland, Britain and France. It is the most intense movement of equines anywhere in the world and it is key to our trade that we have easy access to our markets.