Mr. Flor Madden:

I met the chair and the Chief Executive of Horse Sport Ireland just before Christmas. At that meeting I put forward very much the view, which I am quite happy to share here again with the committee, that the board does need to be represented by people directly elected by affiliates. At that meeting they shared a concern about gender balance. We brought that back to RDS and discussed it. We invited affiliates in and we openly discussed the matter. To the best of my knowledge, all of the affiliates were invited. Many came and we discussed it. At the conclusion of one of those meetings we recommended that there would be a board of seven members. One from each of the four advisory groups whoever their chairs where. Then, from a gender balance point of view, the Minister had two remaining places, and the seventh would be from Northern Ireland. So for gender balance to be addressed, we felt that the Minister could address that as opposed to initially he appointing and the affiliates having to address the matter. That was a positive, constructive suggestion which we made. That four would be directly voted upon and appointed by the affiliates, two from the Minister and one from Northern Ireland.

We also felt that the majority of decisions on the board would then be driven by industry. Crucially, funding is controlled by the Department so he who controls the purse strings can control many things. Accountability is there through the Department. We believe accountability is huge here but the policy or strategy could be driven by those within and from the affiliates, within the industry.