Mr. Jim Power:

I want to summarise briefly the report I did. I spent some years doing this report and I interviewed many stakeholders involved in the industry at all levels, from the top-end professional to the lower level of activities. It is a broad and diverse sector. The sport horse is at the centre of it all. Mr. O'Connor threw out some of the statistics. There are 14,830 active breeders in the country. More than 46,000 people are engaged in the industry, with more than 14,000 full-time equivalent employees, and it makes an economic contribution of €816 million, with an export value of €48 million. All that is achieved with support of about €3 million from the State.

In comparison, the thoroughbred sector makes an economic contribution of €1.84 billion and gets about €65 million in funding from the State. The question that must be asked is if anything like the same level of funding was provided to the sport horse sector, what sort of potential could be realised? The issues I kept coming up against as I did the research were the lack of support structures and the lack of a strategic plan. The industry has traditionally been very fragmented and that was reflected in the whole structure and board of Horse Sport Ireland.

That issue, thankfully, has now been addressed and there is a much tighter and more focused board in place. That is good. The general funding for the industry, particularly in the area of prize money, is very weak. The tourism potential of the sector is not recognised and it certainly is not being exploited. As previous speakers have mentioned, many of our top breeders and riders are being forced to leave the country, which is a great loss of a very talented group of people. The facilities are not up to scratch and there are also issues with maintaining the quality of the breeding stock.

Significant investment in the infrastructure and facilities is needed to try to bring up the level of competition. There has to be a strong focus on education and knowledge transfer. A key part of that is to try to create a career for young people in the horse sport area, so that it is not just an activity that they do in their spare time. It should be made a professional career. There also needs to be a strong focus on the whole breeding framework. Importantly, there needs to be a higher standard of competition available for Irish riders and breeders. If we do not have top quality competitions, we will not have the top quality people participating here and we will continue to see that brain drain.

As part of my research, I visited the Netherlands and viewed some of the facilities there, including the Equestrian Centre de Peelbergen. That is covered in the report. A number of things struck me about that centre. The first was the level of professionalism, the second was the quality of the infrastructure in place and the third, importantly, was the local authority was a key funder of that equestrian centre because it recognised the economic and tourism potential that centre brought to a rural area of the Netherlands. In my experience, the facilities in Peelbergen were up there with the best in class and it is the utopian vision of what the Irish industry can become.

I looked at the potential - and I am not sure if this is a forecast or if it is a target - but if the correct structures are put in place the economic contribution of the industry could be increased by at least 50% very easily.

We could create an extra 700 jobs and it would certainly double the export potential from €48 million to close to €100 million.

Two points stand out in my view. First, the sport horse industry is an incredibly important contributor to rural economic activity. It makes a strong rural economic contribution. Importantly, it makes a strong social contribution as well and it is a key part of many communities. My final point is crucial. Ireland has an incredibly strong reputation for the horse. We need to mind and nurture that reputation. We are going the wrong way about it at the moment. If we continue to go in the direction we are going, one half of the whole horse tradition of Ireland is going to be wiped out. That would be a great pity.