Mr. Michael Sheahan:

I understand that the Deputy's question was about the mortality rates in certain large stables. I do not know about that. Generally, in the Department we do not keep records of mortality rates in trainers' yards.

I am aware that the IHRB has in recent times been doing more in terms of statistics of horses dying on the racetrack or whatever, but I am not aware of a system for keeping a record of the number of horses in a particular trainer's yard that might have died over a period. We have records in our central database of horses that die. We have records when a horse is euthanised, goes to a knackery or whatever. That passport is returned to the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine. There is a system of keeping tabs on horses that die, are euthanised or are slaughtered in the country. It is supposed to be the case that, when horses are slaughtered abroad, the passport is returned. Whether that is working to the extent it should be with regard to horses being slaughtered in England in that particular abattoir, I do not know. We can follow up on that.

There is a certain amount of record-keeping as regards mortality levels, but down to the level of individual stables there is not, to the best of my knowledge. Within the Department, there is no system of recording the mortality rate over a period in a specific stable. Whether there should be is another question.

On the traceability question we talked about earlier, on the cattle front it would be possible relatively easily to work out mortality rates because, as I said, we have a Rolls-Royce system for cattle.