Ms Sharon Power:

On behalf of the Irish Horse Welfare Trust, IHWT, I thank the joint committee for inviting us to participate in this meeting. I will start by providing some background information on the IHWT.

The Irish Horse Welfare Trust was established in 1989 and is the largest and leading equine charity in Ireland. It operates from a farm in County Wicklow and is recognised and supported to some degree by the horse industry. It is also supported annually by the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine by way ofex gratia funding.

Approximately 80 horses and ponies are cared for at any one time at the centre. The trust is largely involved in rescue, rehabilitation and re-homing, but in the past ten years it has also been involved in education and equine welfare horse projects, mainly targeted at the 15 to 22 year age group. For example, in Limerick we have put 84 young people who are an urban horse-owning community through FETAC-accredited qualifications, three of whom have gone on to be jockeys, one of whom is a successful jockey in Kentucky. We also work in areas of Dublin, including Finglas, Darndale and Clondalkin. The Finglas project, also known as the Dunsink project, has been referred to by the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine, Deputy Simon Coveney, as a model of best practice. Fingal County Council has significantly decreased its annual costs associated with stray and wandering horses in the past few years and been commended for its progressive approach in this regard.

The Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine provided funding this year to Irish Horse Welfare Trust in respect of the operation of five micro-chipping clinics to encourage compliance with the new legislation. These clinics were located in Wicklow, Cork, Offaly and Tipperary. We also have a follow-up plan to operate castration clinics in those areas. Unfortunately, many of the local authorities in those counties do not have a designated staff member with whom we can deal directly. This is a matter on which the local authorities need to be more proactive.

The next slide is a photograph of some of the boys who have attended courses at our farm. The next issue for Irish Horse Welfare Trust is responsibility for horses. Obviously, the local councils have responsibility for the enforcement of the Control of Horses Act. We all know there are significant costs involved in the seizure, detention and destruction of hundreds, if not thousands, of equines annually. There is a never-ending cycle of production of mainly poor-quality stock, which is often then mistreated or neglected and picked up by Irish Horse Welfare Trust and other charities. The seizure and destruction of equines incurs huge costs year-on-year, with an ever-ending circle of breeding, impounding and destruction. This has been ongoing now for more than 20 years.

Managed horse projects and education have proven successful in reducing the numbers of stray and unwanted horses in the areas in which we have worked and in increasing welfare standards. The Irish Horse Welfare Trust is prepared to engage with all local authorities to find solutions and in this regard has already approached some local authorities around the country. We have also been contacted by some local authorities seeking help but we are unable to work with all councils unless provided with the resources to do so.

The Irish Horse Welfare Trust plans to roll out a national equine welfare education programme through which it will work with local authorities interested in providing education and training for young people in the area of equine care and welfare. If this is to be successful, it will require buy-in by all local authorities in the problem areas. This project would require financial support from the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine for the provision of a training facility at our farm and to help meet the cost of courses, which could also be part-funded by other stakeholders in education, health and community agencies.

The next slide shows the types of horses and cases with which we deal that would otherwise be picked up by the pound. In regard to the last picture, which is of a stray horse that was injured behind a factory, many people were involved in this case, including a local volunteer, who monitored the horse until such time as it reached an area where it could be caught, staff from IHWT, two members of An Garda Síochána and a veterinary surgeon. This operation also took a whole day because, as the horse was injured, the situation was critical. The next slide is a photograph of a horse in a river, which appears to be dead but made a full recovery. It had been ridden around by young fellows, following which it collapsed in a river. The next slide is a photograph of a horse that had a broken leg, probably for almost a year.

The Irish Horse Welfare Trust currently runs an equine care and welfare course. Leaving aside all of the available formal training, including the BHS, it is well recognised that there is a lack of education at a lower level, a need that is currently being met by IHWT. We also provide accredited education in association with FETAC in the area of stable and yard routines, courses levels 3 and 4 and have also conducted FETAC horse sport riding courses. All of this training is provided in areas of Dublin and Limerick. We have established links with RACE and the Association of Irish Racehorse Owners. Further links on education could be formed with Horse Sport Ireland. We have a huge population of young people in urban areas that have a genuine passion for horses but a lack of education in terms of how to care for them. They are also interested in working within our horse industry, if given the necessary training.

There is no classroom facility at the Irish Horse Welfare Trust farm. As our classroom sessions are currently run in the hay barn, this means they are confined to being held during the summer months. We also have a farmhouse that requires renovation, in respect of which plans have been drawn up and the estimated cost is €90,000 to €100,000. This project was previously deemed eligible for Leader funding.

We will make a submission to the Department, probably in the next week, seeking funding to proceed with the building project. This will avoid wasting further time in rolling out our education programmes for urban communities.

On the Dunsink horse project, worldwide negative publicity followed an article carried on the front page of The New York Timeswhich showed a photograph of an injured horse at Dunsink. This resulted in the Irish Horse Welfare Trust engaging with Fingal County Council and horse owners in the area. Members of the Dunsink horse project must follow membership rules and a code of conduct. Each equine is microchipped and allocated a passport and the premises is registered. Members may not own stallions - the IHWT castrated 13 stallions as part of the project - and breeding is prohibited. Each member has access to grazing, water and fodder storage, as well as a stable when required. Manure is removed regularly and each member pays a weekly subscription of €10 for hay. Educational courses are held on site and at the IHWT farm in Woodenbridge where examinations are also held. Twenty-two young men have completed FETAC level 4 qualifications as part of the project. Unfortunately, the examinations were held in the IHWT hay barn because we do not have classrooms. Our welfare officer, Ms Claire Owens, is involved in weekly management of the project.

Education, training and horse projects offer the only long-term solution to the issues surrounding horses in urban environments. They also reduce the number of illegally kept equines and promote compliance with legislation. The projects also reduce the number of horses seized and destroyed, increase welfare standards, reduce costs for local authorities and provide education and training for young people, with a view to securing careers in the horse industry.

As a County Wicklow-based equine welfare charity working across Ireland, the Irish Horse Welfare Trust is actively seeking to establish a national equine education and training programme aimed primarily at educating and training young people within urban horse-owning communities. The trust needs to refurbish its farmhouse to do this and has developed a project to achieve this objective, for which it will request the Department's support. We ask the joint committee to support the project.

In recent years we have been experiencing an equine welfare crisis, with thousands of horses put down each year and thousands more suffering as a result. Ireland has experienced significant reputational damage as a result of negative publicity about horse welfare. As the land of the horse, we must pull together and address these problems.