Mr. Michael Sheahan:

I agree with the Chair and Deputy Flaherty that traceability in the horse sector is nowhere near as good as it is in the cattle industry. I have no hesitation in saying that our system of traceability for cattle is, if not the best in the world, then definitely among the best in the world. It is a superb system and the envy of every other agricultural country in the world, and indeed of health systems. We really do have a Rolls Royce-standard system in place when it comes to the traceability of cattle. Having said that, it has taken us more than 50 years to develop that system. We started off with tagging and blue cards and since then we have slowly but surely built up the system over the years. A huge impetus came from the bovine spongiform encephalopathy, BSE, crisis, which basically forced Ireland, and other countries, to develop the exemplary system we have now.

We do not have such a Rolls Royce-type system for horses. We have come a long way in this regard, however. I was first involved in this area back in about 2007.

There was very little traceability of any sort in respect of horses. Things have improved considerably since then. For example, we now have premises registration legislation, which, I believe, was introduced in 2014. There are now 27,000 premises registered in Ireland. At least we now know where the vast majority of horses are. We have the change of ownership legislation, which we did not have previously. We also have a central database within the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine. It is not as good as the cattle database, but it is good. It is a pretty good start.