Michael Fitzmaurice (Roscommon-Galway, Independent) | Oireachtas source

When money is given out, are there provisos to make clear that smaller tracks around the country have to be looked after? We saw all of that especially for the smaller racetracks earlier in the year. I know it was not directly in relation to moneys, as that side has television rights and so on. Second, is the testing of horses part of that budget? I presume it is with all the talk about alleged doping and new systems to make sure we test horses. My third question is about something that is part of the budget, whether or not we want to talk about it today. As part of the registering process, contracts on stud books have been given out to different people. It was stated clearly here the other day that the Department had stopped the manual and the new system running together. The Department was blamed for not allowing that and for being the reason there is such a logjam with the books. What are the Minister's thoughts on that? The Department should be giving advice to these people who are getting fair lumps of taxpayer money, which is needed because it goes to a lot of rural areas and helps out. There is bickering and court cases and the Minister has to move in to put in place new committees or new people to look after things. It is not doing the industry any favours, when it is getting the amount of money it gets from the taxpayers. It needs to realise that.