Mr. Michael Sheahan:

From what I know of this, in the past it would not have been uncommon for the passport to be sent out to the stallion owner. I am only guessing that it was probably to do with there being a sense at one stage that whoever owned the book, that is, the passport, owned the horse or had some hold over the horse.

I can only guess that this practice was in place some years ago to get paid a covering fee or something like that. That does not happen now to the best of my knowledge. The legal system is that it is the keeper of the horse that has to get the passport. I am aware that we had one complaint earlier in the year of a case where it was alleged that the passport was not sent to the keeper. We looked at that and there was nothing in it. If the Deputy is aware of cases where the passport is not being sent to the keeper then that is something we can look at but to the best of my knowledge that does not happen. The passport issuing bodies are clear that they have to send them to the keepers of the horses.