Ms Suzie Carley:

I wish to add to that. In Ireland, we bred 16,000. The number is so much higher than in the United Kingdom. Some 80% of the greyhounds that are raced in the United Kingdom come from Ireland.

Let me address a question asked by Deputy Martin Kenny. On tracing and trackability, one of the ways in which we would like to see the exportation of greyhounds tracked and traced would be through the pet passport scheme that is currently in operation so every dog exported from Ireland would go under that scheme. We propose that when the owner is seeking to export the greyhound, they would go to the IGB, which would have to annotate the pet passport to sanction it and say the greyhound may be exported to the country in question. Before that goes to the Department, the Balai certificate would be obtained. It is already in play. We have the pet passport scheme and the Balai scheme so the proposal would incorporate into existing paperwork work that people already need to do.