Martin Ferris (Kerry North-West Limerick, Sinn Fein)
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I do not want this to get personal, with people saying we are playing ping-pong and holding the meeting to ransom. We are not. Every year since I became a member of the committee I have voted €1 billion to Horse Racing Ireland and the greyhound board. I have serious reservations about this because people are sleeping on the streets, people are hungry and there are children in the State with disabilities.

That is why I am challenging this today. The track in Dundalk was offering the facility to harness racing and Horse Racing Ireland deliberately interfered, stopped it and threatened to pull funding and its meetings from that track if it went down that road. If the Minister is prepared to accept that, that is fine. I am not.