Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Wednesday, 15 June 2022

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine

Strategic Priorities for Horse Racing Ireland: Discussion

Ms Suzanne Eade:

To go back to the issue of CCTV, it was a much more complex course of action than we expected to get those CCTV cameras in place. We had to conduct a full European tender which began in the middle of 2021. Believe it or not, we had to employ experts in this field. There are no CCTV experts employed in HRI or the IHRB. It was full procurement. We had 11 companies tender for it and we had to work through those that qualified. Coming into this year, we had a challenge so we had to extend the period. I know the frameworks are all in place and the start of the CCTV was to commence this week. I am confident that we will meet the timeframe committed to by the IHRB when it was last in with the committee, subject to any infrastructural issues that we might stumble across. We should not encounter such issues but they would be the only thing that would stop us getting on with that. I appreciate the frustration of the committee. We, too, are frustrated by how long this process has taken. Again, it was far more complex than expected in the context of dealing with all 25 racecourses or whatever that will have this CCTV. I apologise on behalf of the HRI.

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