Mr. Michael Sheahan:

On what the Deputy said about the welfare grants going to the NGOs, etc., we gave out something like €6 million last year.

Approximately half of that went to groups that deal with horses or donkeys, mostly horses in this case. In my experience, they do a fantastic job. I would not have any qualms about saying that. I commend, in particular, a group called Hungry Horse Outside, over in Longford. It was the first group that came to us ten or 12-years ago to say there was a huge problem with unwanted horses in the country. They said the main reason there are so many is because of indiscriminate breeding, and that we needed to do something about that. I asked what it proposed, and that was having free castration clinics where owners of horses could bring their horses. What was happening before that, was stallions were being left to run with mares and the following year, there would be ten or 20 extra foals and it went on and on.