Mr. Martin Blake:

The policy decision has been taken that we regulate greyhounds in that way. If someone changes it, we will do that. The greyhound industry was under some scrutiny last year and it has responded very significantly to a lot of the issues. I do not have direct involvement with the greyhound industry but I am aware it has improved its traceability system and its response on animal welfare, devoting significantly more resources to that area. One of the debates on microchipping was whether we should have a central database or use the databases that were there. One of the issues that comes up is whether the State should be putting private industries out of business. These were existing databases. The policy decision was not to displace the private industry but to work with it and put systems and security in place around it. The policy effect is that, if we have a microchip number, we can find where it is and who issued it.