Dr. Sonja Egan:

I will take that question, please, Deputy Kehoe. Within Ireland, there are a number of organisations which are authorised to issue passports which are called identification documents. These are non-stud book passports and the organisations can decide which way they want to register the animal within that, whether that is with breeding recorded or without it. Horse Sport Ireland and other organisations within the country are authorised to do this. With regard to our own turnaround of an identification document, or with the equivalent of Leisure Horse Ireland, our turnaround is two weeks. That is without breeding recorded. They are not using the same systems.

As Mr. Duggan referred to in the opening statement, many of the delays culminate in the transition from microsatellites to SNP. The identification documents within our own section which are recording breeding are also using microsatellites. However, all of the new stud book passports for foals are issued on the Single Nucleotide Polymorphism, SNP, platform. In order for us to issue a passport with foal breeding recorded we need to ensure that we have the sire and the dam on the SNP platform before we can verify foal's parentage against it.