Mr. Brendan Gleeson:

Yes. This is an empowering provision and this is the way these provisions are generally drafted. It would be unusual if it did not draft such regulations. There is much public narrative on this but it is an incredibly complex and technical area. There are issues around this that I cannot explain to the Deputy. With regard to deciding what substances can be prohibited and how they should be managed, the board has established a scientific advisory committee. There are a number of experts on that committee, including the director of veterinary medicines in UCD and a Danish person. The latter two people are on the veterinary medicines committee of the European Medicines Agency. There are issues around whether one tests for the metabolites of a substance or the substance itself and they are incredibly technical. What is needed here is empowerment for the board. There are already regulations in these areas based on other legislative measures and the racing code. However, it is impossible to provide for every situation and for every new substance in the regulations. It is also impossible to provide for every new piece of technology that is developed which might be able to find substances at such an extraordinarily low level that they were never found previously. It would not be appropriate, or even possible, to provide for mandatory provisions here. It is too complicated.