Mr. Brendan Gleeson:

I notice that I have a very short provision here beside me and I have a full page of notes, so I will try to explain it as best I can. This provision states that: "A greyhound registered in the stud book and certified to race by the Irish Coursing Club is eligible to race, unless the greyhound is the subject of a disqualification order."

This provision is intended to deal with a matter which has been the subject of some public commentary - the Deputy is right - over the past few years. It relates to the eligibility of progeny of artificial insemination using semen from dogs which have been dead for more than two years.

I will try to go through this step by step. In 2005 rules were introduced which permitted frozen semen from deceased stud sires to be used for artificial insemination, but only for two years after the death of the dog. I think those rules were introduced potentially for two reasons. One might have been a concern about the narrowing of the gene pool in the greyhound sector. In other words, if one used semen from the same few dogs all the time and did not bring any kind of diversity into the breed it would be problematic.

There might also have been a concern about how this might affect breeders - that is, people who were breeding dogs here - and whether there would be any demand for the semen.

The reality is that this two-year limit was never enforced. There might be various issues of practicality that others can explain better than I can, but it was not enforced. It was clearly the intention to revoke the rule early on, but this was not done.

In 2014 this was the subject of significant public commentary and people were unhappy that semen from these dogs was being used. The Department took the view that either the rule should be changed or it should be applied. The decision ultimately was that the board, with the consent of the Minister, introduced a statutory instrument in 2014, which removed this two-year restriction, so that the regulations matched the practice on the ground.

The board can make regulations anytime it wants to, limiting the use of semen from dogs. In the meantime, however, there are progeny that were registered and that were the progeny of semen from dogs that were dead for more than two years. The progeny of those progeny may be running now. One could have several generations of dogs running which were the progeny of dogs that had been dead for several years.

When we introduced the regulations in 2014 they drew a line under this and said that the rule was gone. They could not apply it retrospectively, however, so there is a degree of debate about the eligibility of dogs to race or not. There is a strong view that owners who registered dogs in a stud book and were certified to race, have a reasonable and legitimate expectation that they should be allowed to race. There is also a view that once they were registered in a stud book they had to be allowed to race, so this is a difficult issue. There are people out there who will never be satisfied that it has been dealt with appropriately. I am saying that frankly and I am sure the committee will have people saying that in here.

We have tried to put the issue of the eligibility of dogs in the stud book to race beyond any doubt as of today. We do not believe that there is an issue but we are putting it here in the primary legislation that any greyhound registered in the stud book and certified to race is eligible to race. It therefore puts the issue beyond doubt for now. We cannot put a provision in here that is retrospective in impact. It cannot be done, but we are trying to put that particular issue beyond doubt to the extent that it is possible to do so. That is what this provision is about.