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:
I would say it, would I not, but I think we are in the fortunate position where it is the veterinary department which is responsible for the post-licensing safety inspection programme. Therefore, we do not just do out-of-competition testing, we lead the inspections of the yards. It is an audit, if you like, of the premises, the people and the horses. That was set up six or seven years ago and was operating before that. However, it is unusual. In many other jurisdictions, it would be a security function or a stipendiary steward function. That is why we will have inspections where no samples are taken because they are just that; they are inspections. Then we have the out-of-competition testing with the inspection. Again, one of the sensible ways we have of doing this is that we allow the teams on the ground the wherewithal to assess a yard when they go in, to make sure they are only testing where they feel they should be testing. Unless they are going in to test from the beginning, they have the wherewithal to turn an inspection into an out-of-competition testing visit. This large degree of flexibility in the high level part of it.