Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees
Wednesday, 29 November 2023
Joint Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine
Governance Issues: Irish Horseracing Regulatory Board (Resumed)
Dr. Lynn Hillyer:
He just says to increase the numbers. He does not give a specific number. We have put in recommendations to increase. We have asked for the budget to increase the numbers next year in two ways. One is to increase our number of stable inspections so that we have more boots on the ground and more eyes looking at what is going on and then we can make informed decisions about what to test and the absolute sample numbers. As Mr. O'Loughlin said earlier, we are trying to be sensible about this. It is easy to ask for more resources, but we are trying to put in a stepwise approach to that whereby we put the personnel in place to be able to expand as and when the resource becomes available for the sampling.