Tim Lombard (Fine Gael)
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With the deepest of respect, a system has been in place for the bovine herd since 1996 that shows end of life. End of life is the most important part of any system. We need a system that traces the horse all the way through to end of life. If we do not have an end-of-life element to it, we will have, as Mr. Sheahan said, unfortunate activity that tries to make money off the back of horses that are not suitable for the food chain. The end-of-life element is the ultimate issue. A system needs to be put in place that marks an animal as dead. In many ways, it is a secondary issue where that animal is. Until the animal is marked as dead on the system, the potential for the fraud we are talking about will always be there because we do not know where that animal is at the end of its life. I respectfully suggest that the witnesses look at what happened with the bovine herd in Ireland, that they do not go international, but national. We have the best traceable system in Ireland for the bovine herd. We set it up in 1996 in a matter of weeks. It works. It is a system under which millions of animals are registered on a weekly basis in Clonakilty. That is what is required in this industry.

I agree it is not fully the witnesses' remit. I would argue that it is the remit of the Minister and the Secretary General of the Department. When the Secretary General of the Department of agriculture comes before the committee next week, we will ask him for his vision of this issue because there has to be accountability. I fully disagree with the statement that we learned from 2013. We did not. We are back here again because we did not put a system in place. The system failed us again. Unless we get that change, we will be back here again in five years' time when potentially they have found another way of getting around the system and I cannot describe the damage that will be done to Horse Racing Ireland, Horse Sport Ireland and Ireland Inc.

I am really concerned about the potential for the food chain to be contaminated at a European level, about how many animals could be involved and about where this issue could end up. We need to change our approach. The Secretary General of the Department and the Minister need to take a leading role in that fundamental change of approach.

Mr. Sheahan mentioned in his opening statement that in 2014 a registration of all premises keeping animals was required. Was the premises we are talking about registered with the Department?