Mr. Brendan Gleeson:

I thank both Deputies. First I will deal with the question on point-to-points and the lack of reference to them by Indecon. To be clear, we had an Indecon report that made a broad range of recommendations about the administration of horse racing, governance, finances and a number of other issues. After Indecon, a committee comprising members of the Racing Regulatory Body and the HRI was established. They commissioned Smith & Williamson to compile a report on how the administration of the system might be streamlined. Although it is true that there is no explicit reference to point-to-points in Indecon, it is implicit in the whole idea of streamlining. There is an explicit reference to point-to-points in the report by Smith & Williamson. What we have proposed in the general scheme is precisely what was proposed in that report, which is to move the registration functions - and only the registration functions - to HRI, which already has registration functions across a range of other areas.

I can confirm to Deputy Bradford that I used the word "perception". The reason for doing so was that there is a perception that what is happening here will interfere with volunteerism and with the way point-to-points are run at local level. I shall remove the word "perception" now and state that there will be no change to the running of point-to-points at local level as a result of what we are proposing here.