Michael Fitzmaurice (Roscommon-Galway, Independent) | Oireachtas source

Dr. Hillyer, yes. When she and others go out to a site, they do not know for definite how many horses are there. Are the officials telling me that the Department can go out to any farm around the country and have a list of everything they have, in cattle, calves, sheep and whatever else, but it has not got this for the industry that is being questioned at the moment?

Should the first move by the Department not be to say that within six months we are going to have this foolproof system and we will be able to say where every horse is? To be quite frank about it, it could be done over a six-month period provided everyone is told. Everyone has an equine number if he or she has a horse, at least, or he or she has a herd number. Generally though, it is an equine number. If everyone were told he or she had six months to regularise that animal, that it must have a chip in it or he or she must have a card for it, and we got that up and running, would it not be a massive step towards putting Ireland to the fore first of all? It would cut out a lot of this stuff that is going on, sort of under the breath, about what is happening in Irish horse racing. We hear it day in and day out that horses can go out the back door when the boys or girls come to the front door.

There is an onus on the Department to lead the way on this. It is not as if we have 2 million horses born every year like we do cattle, and we are able to fly through the cattle situation. I am asking the officials if they will give a commitment that within the next six months this system will change, that it will be foolproof and that we will have DNA sampling. It my understanding that registering a horse is pretty expensive at the moment. I know DNA costs but they would have a DNA sample, we will have a chip in them and we will have the card like on the AIM system, which is foolproof. Will the officials give us that commitment to tidy up this whole horse industry once and for all?