Mr. Michael Sheahan:

On the cattle side, there is European legislation that requires us to have a traceability system. For better or for worse, the same does not apply to the horse racing system. Also, for better or for worse, on the horse side, European legislation has been much slower and, even now when things have improved, the requirements are much less onerous than they are for cattle.

I do not disagree with the Senator; there is a need to move forward. There are plans to have one of the final pieces of the jigsaw in place before the end of the year. We have the premises' registration in place. We also have the central database in place and the plan is to have the equine census carried out before the end of the year. We have come a long way. One could always argue that things should have moved faster. Even though the number of horses is far fewer than the number of cattle, there are arguments as to why things are a bit more complicated with horses.