Mr. Pat Herbert:

To provide clarity on the dataset, before we went about the work of the traceability system we met the providers of the cattle movement and monitoring system. We spoke to our counterparts in Australia and the Greyhound Board of Great Britain. We specifically spoke to people in the Irish Coursing Club about introducing an effective and robust recording and traceability system. No different from the cattle movement monitoring system, we had to draw a line on the dataset that was to be included. People have a certain level of expectation. If one goes back too far, the likelihood of getting accurate updates on what happened to greyhounds may decrease as one goes further back.

To clarify, the dataset for the current traceability system that went live in January 2021 concerns all juveniles microchipped from 1 January 2021. As members will be aware, the juveniles are microchipped by ICC stewards, who have the added benefit of being the operators of an authorised database under the microchipping regulations of 2016. That database is called MicroDog. RCÉ receives a direct feed from the ICC on those. It also includes the dataset of active greyhounds that are registered on the race management system, RMS. The RMS is our software for recording activity around the areas of racing and trials. The RMS basically records the form lines that one sees on a race card for every greyhound. Every greyhound that was in a race or trial from 1 January 2021, in addition to every juvenile that was microchipped from January 2021, is included.