Mr. Frank Nyhan:

This bears repeating. There are currently 3,600 dogs in the racing pool in Ireland. There were 2,344 litters in 2018 and a litter is accepted as being between five and six pups. Every year, 6,500 dogs are exported to England and approximately 2,000 dogs go coursing. We are rehoming between 1,100 and 1,200 dogs per annum. Those figures balance. We are producing the number of dogs we require for the industry. That is the current position and those are empirical facts. That was part of the reason we had a problem with the report produced by Preferred Results. We obviously monitor the number of dogs that are running and the number of litters. Allowing for the problems with traceability, which we have been addressing here for some time, there appears to be a balance between the number of dogs being produced and the number required. The stated aim of the Irish Greyhound Board is that no healthy dog should be euthanised and that remains the position. That is the gold standard.