Charlie McConalogue (Donegal, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank Senator Boyhan. It has become more challenging. The tripartite agreement that was in place before Brexit worked well and smoothly. Like everything else, the decision about Brexit made life more difficult and more complicated. Our objective as a Government throughout has been to try to make sure that that can be unknotted as well as possible to continue the flow and engagement between us and Britain, and with Northern Ireland, in every way we could. Brexit has made things more difficult and challenging. There are no two ways about it. There is still good travel and good traffic, both from a breeding point of view and racing point of view. The tripartite agreement that had been there been us, France and the UK was replaced by a bipartite agreement with France specifically. There has been good flow and engagement with France through a derogation that allows for easier movement of eligible high health status thoroughbred horses on a commercial document validated by the industry rather than Government health certificates. That is flowing well between us and France.

On movement from Northern Ireland into the Republic, a North-South bipartite agreement was put in place from 1 January 2021 to continue to facilitate the movement of horses. There has not been any change regarding the movement of horses between Northern Ireland and Britain. In short, it is more challenging but we are still operating in any way we can. Obviously, these are, more broadly, competencies between the EU and UK.