Mr. Michael Sheahan:

I cannot say we have a definite proposal to tell the committee about today but, as the Leas-Chathaoirleach can understand, we have been giving a lot of thought to what needs to change and what do we need to do differently. The European angle is one. We are meeting with our Northern Irish counterparts on Monday where we will be discussing some of the cross-Border issues that have cropped up and that are something of a difficulty. Then we intend to sit down and see what else do we need to do.

It is frustrating. I am frustrated when people ask why we do not have as good a system as we do for bovines. It is a good question. It is not an excuse, but there are complications with horses. When we look at why is there an incentive for fraud and criminality when it comes to horses getting into the food chain, the simple reason is that what is different about horses is we have this aspect of horses being marked out of the food chain which we do not have in cattle. A lot of horses, as members will probably be aware, and Senator Paul Daly said he has horses, get marked out of the food chain for various reasons. One of the single biggest issues is that if they are ever administered bute, which is one of the commonly-used anti-inflammatories, they are marked out of the food chain for life. When a horse is marked out of the food chain, its value is significantly less. For criminals, that creates a big incentive to identify some way they can beat the system and get this horse that has been marked out back into the system.