Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael)
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One of the big differences between greyhound racing and horse racing is that we are under a great deal of pressure in Ireland to maintain prize money in the horse racing sector because the same people race in Ireland as in the United Kingdom, and in some cases as they race in France. What we do not want to see, therefore, is our best horses moving out of Ireland to other countries that have higher prize money and, as a result of that, reducing the status of the horses in terms of the number of group 1 classifications we can run in Ireland.

There are different pressures on the two industries. The competition from abroad in terms of horse racing is intense and therefore we must maintain a level of prize money here to remain competitive. In terms of greyhound racing, to encourage and incentivise breeding in and development of the sector we must have prize money that is at a certain level but we do not have the same level of international competition we might have for horse racing. It exists to a certain extent because of the industry in the UK but we do not get quite as many people travelling, literally on a weekly basis, between the two jurisdictions.