Victor Boyhan (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister and his officials to the committee. They are always welcome. It is great to see the Minister here. He is fiercely committed to the committee and to engaging with it. That is something the committee really appreciates.

I will go through a few items in the order the Minister set out in the statement he submitted. I will focus first on the HRI allocation of €70.4 million rather than the 20% going to the dogs. That is a very substantial amount of money. The Minister and all of us on this committee know that horse racing and horse breeding are an integral part of agriculture, rural life, rural employment, rural communities and rural economy and are massively connected both directly and indirectly to rural employment. Therefore, I am with the Minister all the way. I see the significance and the importance of this industry.

I spoke last year on this and I pulled up some notes today on my contribution then.

I said we should not have any more reports about this industry or the dog industry but that we should dust down the Indecon report. I had a look at that report again today. We had the Indecon International Economic Consultants report and the Deloitte report, so we have reports falling off the shelves in regard to both sectors. There is still a sizeable number of key recommendations that I am not fully convinced have been fully implemented. We should look at that again. It is a healthy exercise to go back and look at reports that are sitting on our shelves and those in the Department. There are matters we should follow up on. It is my intention to bring this up at a future meeting of the committee. I am going to dust down some of the these reports and focus on some of those key recommendations because they are important.

The other thing I liked about the Minister's report was the heavy emphasis he placed on integrity and confidence within the sector. That is a big issue and a recurring theme. As yet only two members have spoken and both mentioned it. The Minister mentioned it in his report. I welcome that focus and emphasis on its importance in his statement. However, that integrity, governance, accountability and animal welfare must be conditional. There must be a measured conditionality in regard to this very substantial funding of €70.4 million for the horse racing industry and €17.6 million for the greyhound racing industry. That it a great deal of money. It is interesting to observe that a significant number of Members of this particular Oireachtas are very focused on animal welfare. It is a recurring theme in the Dáil and the Seanad, and I welcome it. There is a renewed interest in animal welfare. We need to reassure the public. There was the famous "Panorama" programme as well as other investigations into animal welfare, and this is of concern to the Irish people. It is something they expect the establishment and the authorities to pursue.

The Minister referred earlier to our report into the racing industry, and I am delighted he is going to take a look at it. I would like to think he will do more, such as run it by his chief veterinary officer and key personnel in his Department and add to it. It is the beginning. I acknowledge the Chair and his work in guiding us through that. We spent a great deal of time on that. One of the good things about this committee is that we work in partnership with one another and really focus. We believe this is a particularly important industry that we want to see it protected, grow and do well.

I ask the Minister to come back with a timeline. I respect that he has a busy schedule and many priorities but he talked about considering it. I ask him to consider it in the next quarter, if he can do so given all the demands on him. Can he look at how much of this can we implement and proceed with?

In the same week we launched our report, there was much negative comment in the media and subsequently we had the Monasterevin case about which I do not propose to talk. The Minister is right that it is an issue for Revenue, the investigating personnel and An Garda Síochána but again it raised very serious concerns. The paper does not always refuse ink. We do not know how much of the story reported in public is true or false but the investigation will run its course. When the investigation has run its course, it is important it is put into the public domain so that we know what happened and what sanctions were imposed. Clearly it has raised more questions than answers and is of concern so it is something we need to look at.

In regard to the EU and Brexit, and we discussed this last year, we had the tripartite agreement between Ireland, the UK and France. At that stage we were talking about the challenges around Brexit and the movement of bloodstock across those jurisdictions and, of course, mainland Europe. Some concerns were flagged and we are not yet out of the woods in regard to that. Could the Minister touch on that, and on where it is going?

I welcome the proposals and the comprehensive report but my asks of the Minister are simple. Will he expedite his consideration of our report, seek advice from officials in his Department and others, as appropriate, and come back with strong recommendations on how we will implement the key recommendations of both the Minister's report and of this committee's report, if he finds them acceptable? Will the Minister dust down the Indecon and Deloitte reports to see if there are outstanding issues that need to be followed up? Will he place greater emphasis on the conditionality of animal welfare in regard to both sectors and that this be a condition of funding? How will we measure that? I note the Minister published an extensive animal welfare policy document. We need a mechanism or metrics to measure that and reassure the public as well as this committee, the remit of which is animal welfare and agriculture. We want to see both of these industries prosper within a tight regulatory framework that is fair, appropriate, open, transparent and professional.

In regard to the national stud, we may not have time now but I am interested in the State's financial commitments to it and the funding mechanisms around that. It is a wonderful organisation. That is not specifically on our agenda today but at some time the Minister might follow that up with the committee. I thank the Minister and his officials for their time this evening.